


A Precious Thing

by WinterRose527



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-08-25 12:24:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 40,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16661117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterRose527/pseuds/WinterRose527
Summary: North Westeros and South Westeros are two distinct countries. When the south comes under harsh rule, millions flee. Sansa, born in the North, living in the South calls on her brother Robb to protect her daughter. He accepts eagerly, desperate for his sister and niece to be safe.Spoiler for first chapter:When he goes to pick them up though, he finds a different woman entirely with his niece. Who is she, and where is Sansa?Title comes from Lord Varys' conversation with Ned Stark in Season 1 - "And what of your daughter's life, my lord? Is that a precious thing?"





	1. Chapter 1

In all his life he had never seen the border like this. He had been further North when the initial rush hit right after the first wave of imprisonments. He had seen it on the news, men, women, and children trying to fight their way through. The country that had once considered itself the greatest in the world, the most enlightened, the most prosperous, the one who had once been the destination for all the world’s refugees had overnight turned into the largest supplier of them.

 

Six months had passed since that day, but only a mild sense of order had been established. South Westeros was no more inclined to lose its citizens than the rest of the world was eager to receive them, and so a rigorous visa process had been set up on both sides, and the chances of getting an exit visa and an entrance visa simultaneously were abysmal.

 

The caveat, the trump card, of course, was if you had family elsewhere. And so, family members that had once sent money back to Astapor and Yunkai had now fled back to the motherlands that their families had left generations before. North Westeros took on the largest influx, as the two countries had only been distinct from one another for twenty fives years, and so it was that many families had found themselves split on either side. What had once been a cause for sorrow, was now for many a saving grace.

 

It had taken longer than the past six months to convince Sansa to leave. Robb had been trying for many years, but rigorously for the past one. He tried to explain what was playing on the news, the news in North Westeros that was not controlled by the state. What it really meant when the small council was passing all of those measures.

 

She had been certain though, so certain that she would be alright. That her status would protect her.

 

_“North Westeros hates the South, Robb. Of course that’s what your news is saying. I’m here, wouldn’t I know if something was really wrong?”_

 

That had all changed after the Riot of King’s Landing. The images from it were horrific, to be sure, but the police crackdown afterwards was far worse.

 

And then he’d gotten the call from Sansa.

 

_“Robb, Robby…. I should have listened.”_

 

_“Sansa, it’s alright, it’s alright. Do you want me to come get you? I can fake some meetings and be down there next week. I’ll get you out. You and Kitty both.”_

 

_“No! Do not come South. You… you won’t be safe here. If they get you here you won’t be allowed to leave. We’ll come to you.”_

 

Because Sansa had been born in the North she and Kitty were considered dual citizens so they did not need to go through the visa process. They needed a place to live though, and until they were settled they were staying with him, so he had been working on his doublewide townhouse to make it more appropriate for his sister and three year old niece. The niece that he’d only met once, on her first birthday, the last time he’d been South.

 

He’d turned one of the guest rooms into a bedroom for her. He had bought an old sleigh bed that was low enough to the ground that he thought she might be able to get into it on her own, and that it wouldn’t be too much of a problem if she fell out of it. He’d painted the room a light blue, because he remembered that even when Sansa was a little girl who loved everything frilly, she had always preferred blue to pink, and he thought her daughter might feel the same.

 

He hadn’t been able to ask Sansa, because they hadn’t communicated much since that call. She hadn’t wanted to alert anyone. So there had only been one message that he’d received.

 

_1101230._

 

So that was why, on Tuesday, November 1st at 2:30, when he should have been in the office, he was at the Greywater Watch border crossing.

 

His stomach was in knots. It seemed impossible that she would be walking through those doors any minute, that after all this time, they’d have her back. When she’d gone South with images of glittering parties and a handsome husband dancing in her head they had all warned her, but she hadn’t listened.

 

She was in love. There could be no reasoning with a girl in love.

 

He’d noticed the change when he last visited. The sparkling light had dimmed in her eyes and the softness was gone in her voice when she spoke of her husband. Even still, she wouldn’t hear anything of leaving.

 

There had been something different to her though, when they’d last spoken. A grim determination.

 

_“She can’t stay here. No matter what - Kitty has to be safe.”_

 

The doors opened and he looked through the crowds of people rushing into the arms of their families. There was laughter and tears and praying.

 

Finally he saw a little girl who looked just like Sansa had at her age walking with an auburn haired beauty, their hands clasped tightly.

 

The only problem was, it wasn’t Sansa.


	2. Chapter 2

She was in his arms in the next moment. He wasn’t entirely sure why his arms came around her waist but they did on their own accord as she wrapped an arm around his neck, her other hand still firmly in the little girl’s.

 

_“Call me Sansa. Please, she’s your niece, I swear it, you’re her only hope, please.”_

 

_“Where is Sansa?”_

 

_“I’ll tell you everything, but please. She’s the one who sent me, think of Kitty. Please.”_

 

He looked down at the little girl holding tightly to the woman’s hand. She was undeniably Sansa’s daughter, everything from the light dusting of freckles across her little button nose to the distinct auburn of her hair, to the way she held her little head up high.

 

 _No matter what - Kitty has to be safe_.

 

He had agreed readily to that. Of course she did. She was a child, and an innocent, she was his beloved sister’s only daughter. He had not anticipated that she would arrive without her mother but his promise was exact and unconditional and he would not waver from it.

 

He pulled away from the woman and cupped her cheek, and said as warmly as he was able, “Sansa, welcome home little sister.”

 

All of his attention though was on the little girl holding her hand, looking up at him curiously as her cheek rested against the woman’s thigh. He knelt down so that he might be at eye level with her.

 

“Hello Kitty, I’m your Uncle Robb,” he offered.

 

 _It was not curiosity_ , he realised as the little girl disappeared behind the woman’s leg.

 

He had not expected her to hug him, they did not know one another. The last time he had held her she was only a year old and she would not remember the way he’d made her giggle as he stroked his finger down the swoop of her nose. Even still it was jarring to see the way she shrunk away as though he might do her harm - it had not been mere shyness that flickered in her light green eyes.

 

The woman stroked her hair and said in a gentle voice, “We have had a very long journey, haven’t we Kitten? But we are so excited to see Uncle Robb, aren’t we?”

 

He looked up and found the woman smiling down at the child, which must have meant that she had nodded. Her glance fell to his and her smile turned sympathetic. There was something familiar in her face, something he couldn’t quite place, but he would not get his answers while they were here so he stood up.

 

She bent down and picked Kitty up, drawing his niece into her arms. The little girl clung to her as she stood up, wrapping her arms around her neck and resting her little cheek on her shoulder.

 

“Mommy I’m sleepy,” Kitty yawned.

 

His stomach churned at her calling this woman _Mommy_ but he said nothing.

 

“I know, my love, I know,” the woman cooed at her, “We are just going to sign a few things and then the nice men are going to let us get our bags and Uncle Robb will get you all snug as a bug, I promise.”

 

 _“What about you?,”_ his niece cried in horror, lifting her head to look in the woman’s eyes, “You can’t leave me, you _promised_.”

 

He had never known a child could sound like that. Like the promise had been forged on the field of battle, like she understood the consequences at stake and that she had made her own on her honour.

 

“I’m sorry, Kitten, I misspoke,” the woman said as though a three year old might understand that word. Kitty nodded as though she did, looking deeply into the woman’s matching green eyes. “You and I are staying together, my love. Just like I promised.”

 

Her eyes turned towards him, silently imploring him. He knew her in that moment. He remembered her from Sansa’s wedding. She’d worn a golden gown that complimented her hair’s true colour, the colour of her family - and their wealth.

 

The way Kitty clung to her suddenly began to make sense. She was her aunt, after all.

 

“Don’t worry, Kitty,” he said in as steady a voice as he could manage, “You and your Mommy are staying together.”

 

The little girl turned her eyes on him as well. He had been through screenings and background checks, even in a courtroom a time or two, but he had never felt so withered by anything half as much as he was by that cool gaze. She was taking the measure of him, he was sure of it, and he was desperate for her not to find him wanting.

 

She didn’t say anything, she just rested her head once again upon the woman’s shoulder, burying her little face into her neck. He wasn’t sure that it was him that she trusted, but either way she’d been reassured and that’s all that mattered.

 

That, and where in seven hells his sister was.

 

***

 

She willed her heart to slow as Robb pulled onto the highway. It had been hammering loudly in her chest as they signed immigration papers, though her hand had miraculously not stuttered as she wrote _Sansa Baratheon_.

 

_Identity theft. Illegal border crossing. Kidnapping. Treason._

 

She had always been a law abiding citizen, she had never received so much as a speeding ticket. Now, however, her crimes were multiplying. If she were caught and thrown into prison, she would deserve it, she was guilty.

 

Unlike so many of the others.

 

_Do not think of them, you cannot help them, but you can help her. You can help her, and you must._

 

“I brought some snacks,” Robb said stiffly, his eyes on the road. He gestured towards a bag at her feet and said, “I wasn’t sure if th-you would have eaten.”

 

“Thank you,” she said, leaning forward to grab the bag. She pulled out a bottle of water and undid the cap. When she turned around she found Kitty already looking at her. “Here Kitten.”

 

She handed her niece the water bottle who grabbed it with both of her little hands and took a sip before resting it in the cupholder of the car seat that Robb had set up for her.

 

She looked in the bag and for the first time in weeks she fought the urge to laugh. It was full of junk food. Sansa would have been horrified.

 

She opened a bag of cheese crackers and offered one to Kitty. She smiled at the _crunch, crunch, crunch_ of her niece’s chewing, already holding her little hand out for more. She poured a few more crackers into it and then popped one into her own mouth, crossing her eyes at the little girl.

 

Usually Kitty would have giggled at that, before trying to do an impression of her. Now though the little girl only held out her other hand, so she took it, rubbing her thumb along the soft skin of her palm.

 

“How long is the drive, Robb?,” she asked when she noticed him glancing over.

 

It was a wonder she had noticed him at all. She and Kitty were used to blocking out the rest of the world by now.

 

“About two and a half hours,” he informed her.

 

“Okay, my love, why don’t you finish up those crackers and have another sip of water and then try to take a little nippy nap?,” she suggested.

 

In spite of her best efforts, Kitty hadn’t been sleeping much at all the past couple of weeks, and there were dark circles under her eyes that had no place on the face of a three year old.

 

“No,” the little girl said firmly.

 

“Kitty…,” she sighed.

 

Kitty shook her head and looked meaningfully towards Robb, her little hand tightening around her fingers.

 

_She is too used to overnight buses and motels._

 

She glanced apologetically at Robb, who as yet was unaware what his niece was afraid of. He kept his eyes trained on the road, though a muscle in his left cheek told her that he had noticed her gaze.

 

“Kitten, this is your Uncle Robb,” she explained gently, “We don’t have anything to fear from him, you don’t have to protect me from him. Sleep, little one, and everything will be alright.”

 

Robb’s eyes now flicked to hers and the fear that she had felt churning in her stomach for weeks was present in them. For some reason that comforted her.

 

“But Mommy-,” Kitty started to argue.

 

“In fact!,” she went on as brightly as she could, “Now that we are with him you don’t have to call me Mommy.”

 

She wasn’t entirely sure what they were going to do once they arrived in Wintertown. She wasn’t sure what their daily lives would look like, or who she was meant to be to her niece. On the journey north and at the border it had been clear, the only way for her to cross was to pretend to be Sansa, using forged documents and too much red hair dye.

 

Now though, it could be more dangerous to pretend to be Sansa. The Starks were as well known in North Westeros as her family was in South Westeros. There were too many people from Sansa’s past who would know the difference, who would remember the girl who travelled south with songs in her heart and lightness in her bones.

 

“Really? I can call you _Auntie Ella?,_ ” Kitty asked, whispering the last bit.

 

“ _You can_ ,” Ella whispered theatrically.

 

That did get earn her niece’s giggle and she felt her heart slow even more at the familiar sound that she had missed so much.

 

“I’m still not tired,” Kitty countered stubbornly, but she was asleep within minutes.

 

Robb must have been glancing in the rearview because as soon as Kitty’s little lips parted in sleep he spoke.

 

“You’re Myrcella Baratheon,” he noted. His voice turned almost into a growl when he said, “ _Joffrey’s_ sister.”

 

“I am,” she allowed.

 

“Where is my sister?,” he asked.

 

This was one of the questions that had followed her every step of the journey north. It was always going to be the first question, the only question really, that mattered. She had no better an answer now though as she had when she and Kitty had boarded the bus for the Riverlands some weeks ago and it had kept her up many nights. She too had dark purple circles under her eyes.

 

“I don’t know,” she told him honestly. “She wouldn’t tell me where she was going.”

 

“Why?,” he questioned softly, glancing nervously in the rearview at Kitty.

 

She glanced back as well, studying the steady rise and fall of her niece’s chest before telling him quietly, “She didn’t want me to know in case we were caught.” His blue gaze locked onto hers in question briefly before he turned them back to the road. “ _If_ we were caught, we had to make sure that Sansa would not be. It was the only way to ensure that she could still come back for her, for Kitty.”

 

His jaw set firmly, that muscle in his left cheek appearing once again.

 

“What was this then? Sansa wanted you out as well? You’ve no family in the North, and you use _my_ niece as your way out?,” he seethed at her.

 

“Of course not. Do you think you are the only one who begged Sansa to leave? To warn her against marrying Joffrey in the first place? I have been pleading with her since before the first arrest to take Kitty and go so that _my_ niece would safe. I even found a way for us _all_ to leave after that first purge and she wouldn’t go so-“

 

“So you stayed?,” he questioned, “Knowing what you knew? Why?”

 

It was a good question. A smarter woman would have left when the Small Council first passed the law against protests, or when they started shutting down different news organisations.

 

A smarter woman would have left after her conversation with her grandfather about Trystane’s imprisonment.

 

_“What is it to you? He is not your fiancé any longer, is he?,” he asked her._

 

_“That’s not the point! He’s done nothing wrong!,” she argued._

 

_“The Small Council says he has,” her grandfather countered calmly, “And you should know by now that is all that matters.”_

 

_“All that - we have a constitution! We have a parliament - we have due process! Our legal system is the envy of all the world, I should know considering you have been droning on and on about it since I was a little girl,” she pointed out._

 

_“Droning? Droning? I have been teaching you for the betterment of this family! Of this country! Myrcella you aren’t like your brothers, you have a clear head, I know you do. Do not let something so menial as your heart muddle it,” he ordered her._

 

_“The Martells will not forget this - or do you not remember why I was engaged to Trystane in the first place? Was it not you who schooled me on the need to bring them back into the fold? How do you imagine they will respond to the imprisonment of their favorite son?”_

 

_“With caution, if they know what’s good for them,” he dismissed, “And you would do well to do the same.”_

 

_“Or what? You’ll imprison me?,” she challenged._

 

_She did not flinch when his hand slammed down upon the table but even still she had to fight to hold his gaze._

 

_“You are my only granddaughter, I would never let any harm befall you…you know that… That Stark girl and her child that you are so fond of though…”_

 

_Her blood ran cold as she searched his countenance for any signs that he was bluffing. Everyone had a tell, even him, but she found none._

 

_“That child is your great granddaughter! Your blood flows through her veins.”_

 

_“Precious little of it. Do you take me for as great a fool as Joffrey? Do you think I do not see what the two of you are doing? You both love that sweet little girl so dearly, don’t you?”_

 

“I couldn’t leave them,” she nearly whispered, her eyes on the road as a sudden chill went through her body.

 

She felt his gaze on her but she couldn’t look at him. She had stayed so strong, these past months. So strong during those first dark days when Trystane was taken and then Arianne as well. Arys had almost broken her but she stayed true.

 

_Think not of them, only of her._

 

“I still don’t understand,” he sighed, “Why didn’t Sansa just bring her herself?”

 

“My brother is not the sort of man that let’s his playthings go. There is no toy he liked quite so much as your sister,” she told him honestly.

 

There would be no lies between them, he deserved the truth. He had committed a crime now too, he was guilty of kidnapping and of lying to his government at least. From what she knew of him he was too intelligent not to know this and yet he’d said nothing of himself. His only worry was for his sister.

 

“If he harms one hair on her head-“

 

“Then I will travel south and kill him _myself_ ,” she seethed.

 

He didn’t look at her but he nodded, gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

 

She turned and looked out the window, at the trees of the forest along the highway whooshing past in a blur of green and brown. All at once a flurry began, white flakes of snow hitting the trees and the pavement and the windshield.

 

She hadn’t seen snow in some time and the sight of it lifted her spirits. They had made it.

 

She turned to look at her niece, whose little eyelids flickered lightly. She hoped she was dreaming of nice things, like her Uncle Tommen’s cat Ser Pounce and the smell of her mother’s lemon cakes baking. Something told her though, that she wasn’t.

 

She took off her coat and draped it over Kitty before turning to face forward once again.

 

“We’ve put you in a terrible position, Robb, and I’m sorry for it. You don’t owe me your loyalty or protection or kindness so I will not ask it of you, but you owe this to Sansa. Whether we agree with it or not, this is what she wanted. I tried to talk her out of it but -“

 

“But there is no reasoning with a girl in love,” he said quietly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey ya'll, would love to know what you think!


	3. Chapter 3

 

It was still snowing by the time they reached his townhouse. It was starting to pile up and both Ella and Kitty were silent, watching the snow fall.

 

He was silent as well, because he wasn’t sure what to say to either of them. He had so many questions, but none that he could ask in front of his niece and few that Ella would have the answers to.

 

“Auntie Ella?,” a small voice asked.

 

“Yes, my love?,” Ella asked turning around.

 

“What does it taste like?,” Kitty asked her.

 

“Would you like to find out for yourself?,” he asked, trying at the light tone that Ella used with her.

 

Kitty looked at him warily and then her eyes flitted to Ella. His followed and he saw her cross her eyes at the little girl.

 

Kitty let out that adorable little giggle and nodded and Ella unbuckled her seatbelt.

 

“I’ll grab our suitcases in a minute,” she told him, “I just want to get her settled.”

 

He nodded and followed her out of the car. She opened Kitty’s door and unbuckled his, _their_ niece. The little girl clung onto her and Ella shut the door.

 

He opened the trunk to pull out their suitcases. They were small, too small. She hadn’t told him how they’d gotten north but he could guess. She was too smart to try for the caravans, a young woman and a child traveling on their own would be prime targets for theft and worse, and from what little he’d heard he knew it wasn’t as simple as a flight. She wouldn’t have risked using the forged documents more than was necessary.

 

He figured they had taken buses. Ella wouldn’t have had to show ID and they were reasonably safe. It made sense that they had only small bags with them. Ella would have been carrying them, and Kitty most likely, herself.

 

The very least he could do was bring them inside.

 

He closed the trunk and found the two of them, their faces tilted up towards the heavens, their tongues out.

 

In spite of himself, he chuckled. He hadn’t really thought that he was ever going to laugh again when it wasn’t Sansa who showed up, but there was something that churned deep in his stomach at seeing her daughter letting snowflakes land on her tongue.

 

Ella turned and smiled, “I think Uncle Robb should have some, don’t you, Kitten?”

 

Kitty nodded at her and looked at him expectantly. He was not so much a fool as to not realise that this was a test. Ella was giving him a chance and it was his job not to screw it up.

 

He made a big show of tilting his head back and stuck out his tongue, “ _Aaaah_.”

 

He heard Kitty and Ella giggling as the first snowflakes hit his tongue. He looked over to find them both watching him. Kitty was still holding onto Ella tightly but her eyes were not quite so wary as they had been.

 

He smiled at her, he couldn’t not. She was so adorable, and so very similar to her mother. Quiet and observant, a multitude of secrets hiding behind her eyes.

 

“Come on, let’s get you guys out of the cold,” he said to them and started walking up his stairs. Ella followed behind and he heard loud barking. He turned around and told them, “I have a dog.”

 

“A dog?,” Kitty asked, her little body shaking.

 

“Is she-,” he started to ask Ella.

 

“Oh! A _dog_ , how exciting!,” Ella exclaimed. She turned to Kitty and said, “Now I have a _very_ important question for you… Do you think he says _bowwowwow_ or _woofwoofwoof_?”

 

Kitty took Ella’s cheeks in between her hands and said, “I don’t know.”

 

She was squishing Ella’s cheeks together until her lips were puckered but she still asked, “Should we find out?”

 

It came out kind of _smooshy_ for lack of a better word and Kitty giggled and nodded.

 

He unlocked the door and Grey Wind was there, tail wagging and tongue lolling.

 

“Grey Wind, sit,” he commanded and Grey Wind’s butt hit the floor immediately.

 

“Oh he’s so handsome, isn’t he?,” Ella asked Kitty. She turned to him and said, “Can I pet him?”

 

He nodded at her and she stepped forward and held her hand out for Grey Wind to sniff. He nuzzled against it and she stroked his head, scratching behind his ears.

 

“Do you want to try, my love? He is so soft!,” Ella cajoled her.

 

Kitty nodded and Ella bent down. Kitty didn’t offer her hand for Grey Wind to sniff but it didn’t matter, because when her little hand touched his head he let out his woodsy hum. Kitty reached her other hand down and started smooshing his face the way she’d just done to Ella and he was afraid Ella’s knees would buckle from the way she was bending over to give Kitty access.

 

She righted back up and Grey Wind let out an undignified groan. Ella’s hand went back to his head to stroke it as if she was hardwired to soothe discomfort.

 

He ushered them in and closed the door, breathing easier the moment they were inside.

 

“Let me show you your rooms and then we’ll have some dinner,” he said and they followed him up the stairs.

 

He walked by the room that he had made up for Sansa and took them to the room he’d chosen for Kitty, knowing that Ella would want to get her settled before anything else.

 

He turned on the light and set down the suitcase that he assumed belonged to Kitty.

 

“It’s Mommy’s favorite color,” Kitty said softly, looking at the walls.

 

He felt the sudden urge to cry. He hadn’t seen his sister in so long, and their conversations had become fewer and further between in recent years. It felt important, somehow, that he still knew her.

 

“It is,” Ella nodded, her eyes meeting his.

 

She pressed a kiss to Kitty’s temple and set her down.

 

“I’ll get some more things this weekend, I was thinking a bookshelf maybe, and a big chair. Maybe a trip to the toy store?,” he wondered.

 

He was not in anyway above bribery.

 

“Do you like to read, Uncle Robb?,” Kitty asked him.

 

“I do,” he told her honestly.

 

“Me too,” she nodded and continued looking around.

 

He wanted to offer to read to her but he didn’t have any children’s books. He should have thought of that, he realised, but he hadn’t. He figured Sansa would be here and she’d tell him everything that they needed.

 

And more than that, he wasn’t sure that she’d want him to. She had grabbed Ella’s hand as soon as her aunt had set her down.

 

_What horrors have you been through, little one? What have you seen?_

 

“Would you like to see your room?,” he asked Ella.

 

She gave him a kind smile and nodded and he picked up the other suitcase to lead them back down the hall to the room he’d had made up for Sansa. It felt wrong to bring her in there, but none of the other rooms had beds in them and in spite of his anger and fear at Sansa not being there, she had risked her freedom, maybe even her life, to bring his niece here, to safety. To honor his sister’s wishes.

 

He was in her debt and regardless of how that made him feel he would not treat her unkindly.

 

He turned on the light and lead them in. It was the largest of the guest rooms and it had its own bathroom attached to it. He hadn’t painted the walls so they were the same cream they’d always been. There was a large closet, too big for the little suitcase she had though he suspected not nearly as large as the one she’d left in King’s Landing, and a Queen sized four poster bed.

 

“Thank you, Robb, it’s lovely,” Ella said kindly.

 

He nodded and tried to smile at her but it didn’t quite come out right.

 

“I’ll let you two get settled, is chicken alright for dinner?,” he asked.

 

“It’s perfect, thank you, I’ll just get us washed up and then come down to help,” she told him.

 

He didn’t bother telling her that she didn’t need to help, that she’d had a long journey and had been taking care of a child for the past however long. Something told him she was not the sort that would let that stand so he didn’t waste his breath.

 

He went downstairs and let Grey Wind out the back door. He’d need to take him for a walk later but he didn’t want to leave them on their own just yet.

 

He started pulling out everything for dinner. He had only begun to cook recently, his girlfriend Roslin was a great cook and had been teaching him a bit, and he had planned on impressing Sansa with his new talent. Hopefully he could impress or at least feed her daughter.

 

Ella came down after a few minutes, Kitty in her arms once again. They had both changed and Ella had put Kitty’s hair up in a little ponytail and put her in a pair of feety pajamas. He looked at the clock and realised it was 7 o’clock and that it had to be nearing her bedtime.

 

“Oh it smells _yummy_ , doesn’t it Kitten?,” Ella asked, setting Kitty down on the counter. She turned to him, “Can I help with anything?”

 

She had also pulled her hair up into a ponytail and he spotted a bit of gold amidst the red. He was starting to feel a little unsteady.

 

“I could uh, use a glass of wine, do you mind pouring?,” he suggested, thinking that she probably could as well.

 

“Red or white?,” she asked.

 

“Your choice, white is in the fridge and red is in the pantry.”

 

To his relief she went to the pantry and grabbed a bottle of red. She went into a drawer and picked out the wine opener and then into a cupboard and grabbed two wine glasses.

 

He raised his eyebrows at her and she gave him a small smile, “I’m half Lannister. It’s one my many talents…,” her smile dropped and said, “And I’ve been in Sansa’s kitchen a thousand times. It’s set up just the same.”

 

“It’s uh… how our mom set hers up,” he remembered.

 

“I know,” she said softly, as though she was remembering too, “Sansa told me.”

 

“When you cook, do you think of Grandma like Mommy does?,” Kitty asked him.

 

“Yeah honey, I do,” he told her, “I used to sit up on the counter and watch her, just like that. Did your Mommy tell you lots about her?”

 

“No,” Kitty shook her head. Her green eyes, the ones that matched her aunt’s looked hopefully at him, “Will you?”

 

***

 

He was a natural.

 

Kitty still wasn’t a hundred percent sold on him, but Ella was.

 

It became quite clear halfway through dinner that if Kitty asked Robb to pull out his beating heart for her, he would. It took little else to convince Ella about someone.

 

He had set up a booster seat for Kitty already, and Robb sat at the head of the table, Kitty on one side, her on the other. Robb made them a delicious chicken in a lemon cream sauce.

 

 _He thought Sansa was coming_ , she realised sadly as she’d taken the first bite.

 

Thankfully, her niece had inherited her mother’s love of lemon’s and she had eaten up her whole plate of chicken and rice and green beans and asked for seconds. That had spirited Ella, she hadn’t had a real appetite in weeks and it had been a long time since she’d had such a balanced meal. She’d tried, on the road, but bus stops and chain restaurants didn’t make it terribly easy.

 

He told Kitty all about her grandmother and grandfather, both dead now. He told her about the blue roses that grew at their ski house further north and about how Sansa had learned to ice skate on the frozen pond.

 

“Auntie Ella, I’m sleepy,” Kitty yawned and she could have cried.

 

Kitty had slept for an hour or two in the car but hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in weeks and the fact that she was tired now meant that she felt safe.

 

“Alright, my love, I’ll take you upstairs but first can you thank your Uncle Robb for making us such a delicious dinner?,” she prompted.

 

“Thank you for making a delicious dinner, Uncle Robb,” Kitty parroted.

 

“I’m glad you liked it, sleep tight honey,” Robb said warmly.

 

On another night, not long from now, she’d prompt Kitty to give him a hug goodnight, but she wasn’t going to push her now. It had been a long day, after weeks of long days, and her niece had always had a deep wariness of men. Even as a baby she had cried anytime she was left on her own with men.

 

_Some lessons girls learn too late, others too early._

 

Ella stood up and crossed to pick up Kitty out of her seat.

 

She turned to Robb and asked, “If I asked you to leave the dishes so that I could do them, would you?”

 

“Your tone suggests you already know the answer to that question,” he pointed out.

 

She nodded, because she did, and headed upstairs with Kitty. She hadn’t unpacked all of her things, so she pulled out her toothbrush and toothpaste and brought her into the bathroom to brush her teeth.

 

When they were done she brought Kitty back into her room and they both stopped when they saw Grey Wind lying on the foot of her bed.

 

“I think he’s sleepy too,” she told her niece.

 

“Do you think he’ll stay with me all night?,” Kitty asked hopefully.

 

Ella looked at Grey Wind. He was some sort of mix, that was clear, but he had soft grey fur and kind brown eyes. She never made any promises that she couldn’t keep, but something told her that Grey Wind was a safe bet.

 

“I think he will, if you want him to?,” she asked.

 

Kitty nodded and pat Grey Wind on his head. The bed was low enough to the floor that Kitty was able to climb into it on her own and Ella knelt down and pulled the covers up to her chin.

 

It was the first night since they’d left King’s Landing that they would be sleeping in separate rooms.

 

“Now Grey Wind will be here to keep you safe, but if you get nervous at all I’m just down the hall. You can come climb in with me, okay?,” she told her.

 

She knew all the parenting books would tell her not to offer, but she wasn’t a parent. She was an aunt to a scared little girl and she would do anything in her power to make her happy.

 

“Okay,” Kitty nodded and took her hand in both of her little ones, “If you get scared you can climb in with me too.”

 

She was also an aunt to a very brave little girl. And a loyal one too.

 

“Thank you, my love,” she said, stroking her niece’s soft cheek.

 

“Can we pray for Mommy?,” Kitty asked her.

 

“I think that’s a lovely idea,” Ella said honestly.

 

She liked their evening prayers as well, and though she wasn’t sure any of the gods were listening, she knew that wherever Sansa was, she was praying for them too.

 

“To the gods old and new this is what I ask of you,” Kitty recited their traditional opening lines, “Please keep Mommy safe and tell her that we love her and please bring her lots of lemons.”

 

“And please let her come here soon, so that we can all be together once again,”Ella added.

 

Kitty turned on her side and Ella placed a kiss to her forehead.

 

“Auntie Ella?”

 

“Yes Kitten?”

 

“Uncle Robb isn’t like Father, is he?”

 

“No. No, my love. Your Uncle Robb is nothing like your Father.”

 

“That’s good,” Kitty yawned. “He makes yummy chicken.”

 

Ella smiled and kissed her temple again and stood up. She stroked Grey Wind’s head on her way by, which was already resting on Kitty’s little legs and she crossed to the door and turned out the light.

 

She made her way down the stairs and found Robb in the kitchen doing the dishes.

 

She reached for the sponge but Robb looked at her and handed her the half full wine glass that she’d left on the table instead. She sighed but took it gratefully, hopping up on the counter.

 

“She go down alright?,” he asked.

 

“I think so, Grey Wind is with her, I hope that’s alright,” she wondered, realising that she should have asked, “I think he makes her feel safe.”

 

Robb smiled sadly and nodded, “He should. I know he might not seem like it to you, but he can be pretty vicious. We were walking one night and there was a man attacking a woman and… well anyway, he’ll watch over her.”

 

She took a sip of her wine. It was good, she didn’t drink very much but she’d only ever drank good and this was _good_.

 

“Did he… Joffrey I mean… did he ever hurt her?,” Robb asked.

 

“No,” she shook her head. “I think he always knew that Sansa or I would have murdered him if he had. But…”

 

“But?”

 

“She’s very perceptive and by the time she was born the bloom was off the rose with Joffrey. I think she always sensed Sansa’s fear of him and he did nothing to assuage that. He wasn’t an engaged father to say the least and she hardly saw him. And with the other men that he had in the house… and with things that happened on the… she just doesn’t trust men. And I know you’re nothing like Joffrey and that we owe you our lives but… I don’t want to push her. I… I wish she didn’t have to be so afraid but that fear could save her life one of these days and…”

 

“Woah, woah, woah, calm down, breathe,” Robb said, turning off the faucet and drying his hands. He placed his hands on her arms and rubbed them gently, “Breathe, Ella, breathe.” She willed her heart to return to normal and she nodded, taking slow steadying breaths. “I’m not asking because I am upset or surprised that she’s wary of me. She doesn’t know me, it’s perfectly normal that she wouldn’t warm to me right away. And don’t think I haven’t seen you trying to include me, because I have and I’m grateful. I only ask so that I can be more aware of how to treat her going forward.”

 

His blue eyes were so similar to Sansa’s that she found herself trusting their earnestness immediately.

 

“I’m sorry,” she sighed.

 

“Ella,” he said sternly and her eyes snapped back up to his, “I can’t pretend to understand why Sansa didn’t bring Kitty here on her own, all, _all_ that I understand is that you risked imprisonment and worse to bring Kitty here, that you risked everything to help my sister and niece. So you don’t apologise to me, is that clear?” She nodded dumbly and he released her, “Good. Now do you want to dry?”

 

She nodded again and he handed her a bowl and a dish cloth.

 

They worked in silence for a few minutes and it felt oddly comforting, being in a home, in a kitchen, doing something as menial as washing dishes.

 

“We need a plan,” she told him.

 

“I always thought of washing and drying dishes as a rather straightforward kind of thing,” he said and she glanced over at him. The smirk on his face suggested he was kidding and the mirth in his blue eyes when he glanced at her confirmed it. “But go on.”

 

“Well… I don’t think I can go on pretending to be Sansa,” she started, “Fooling the border was one thing, but people here _knew_ Sansa, they’ll know that I am not her.”

 

“I didn’t tell anyone, that Sansa was coming, I mean,” Robb told her. Her body flooded with relief, she had been worried that he would have. “So what if…”

 

“What?”

 

“Well… she’s got my hair and colouring, and your eyes…,” he pointed out, “So… for the time being… why don’t we pretend that she’s… ours?”

 

“Ours?”

 

“Yeah I mean, you were pretending the whole way north right? We’ll say that you called me when things started going bad down south and that I’m helping you get on your feet and getting to know my daughter at the same time. We’ll have to get you some new papers-“

 

“I can get papers,” she nodded. She’d call her contact in Essos tomorrow and the renewed papers would be there by the end of the week. He already had hers and Kitty’s photos, and visas were no harder to fake than passports and birth certificates. “But Robb won’t that… complicate things for you?”

 

“You think I care more about my reputation than her safety?,” he asked.

 

It could work. Kitty’s features could just as easily be a blend of hers and Robb’s as they were Joffrey’s and Sansa’s. With the right paperwork and the right backstory it could work. Well except for - “What about the press?”

 

“I’ll handle the press,” he assured her. “We’ll keep it quiet, and hopefully we won’t have to keep it up for long.”

 

She picked up her wine glass and said, “To the lies we tell.”

 

He picked up his and clinked it against hers, “And the truths they hide.”


	4. Chapter 4

Robb came in on Thursday night and leaned against the inside of his front door, loosening his tie.

 

He heard classical music playing and he walked into the living room to see Ella curled up under a blanket, sitting in one of the oversized chairs, reading a book.

 

“Hey,” he said softly.

 

“Hi,” she said softly as well, “How was your date?”

 

 _Not great_.

 

“It was fine,” he said, “Food was terrible though, I’m going to grab something to eat, do you need anything?”

 

“No, thank you, but Kitty made pasta and meatballs, it’s still warming on the stove,” she told him, “We weren’t sure if you would have eaten.”

 

He wouldn’t be entirely surprised to find that his niece had made meatballs all on her own. She was shockingly intelligent, her vocabulary had to be off the charts and as Ella said she was incredibly perceptive. He’d only known her for a few days and he’d been awed a dozen times at some of the things she said.

 

He found himself jealous that Ella had spent the whole day with Kitty when he’d had meeting after meeting. He’d missed his niece while he sat in that terrible restaurant, picking at his deconstructed steak tartare, which when it came down to it, was really just raw beef with egg on the side.

 

“Will you -,” he started, but then thought better of it.

 

“Will I what?,” she prompted, closing the book.

 

“Keep me company? I…I’d love to hear about her day… if you don’t mind,” he said.

 

She placed the book down on the side table and stood up, folding the blanket.

 

“Robb Stark,” she smiled, as she walked over to him, “I dare say you’re in love.” He blushed, which was ridiculous. They were talking about his niece after all. “You have marvellous taste.”

 

She patted his arm on her way by and lead him into the kitchen. He had told her to make herself at home, he had realised that the only way for Kitty to feel comfortable was if Ella did. She looked to her aunt for everything, and he desperately wanted Kitty to feel at home here, not knowing how long it would be until Sansa arrived.

 

What he didn’t tell her was that they made it feel like more of a home than it had, and that walking into the smell of a meal having been eaten and enjoyed made him think of his childhood.

 

He grabbed a bowl from the cupboard and loaded it up with pasta and meatballs. Ella opened the oven and pulled out a piece of garlic bread and put it on top, before grabbing the kettle and going to the sink to fill it up with water.

 

“So, we had a _very_ busy day,” she told him in the voice she used with Kitty when she wanted to cajole her to do something. It was the kind of voice that told you that you were part of a _secret mission_. “We took Grey Wind to the park - you weren’t kidding, huh? There was a homeless man there, he wasn’t bothering us or anything but Grey Wind was on high alert, but then, Kitty was the one holding his leash on the way there and he never pulled or anything, in fact if the house was on fire I don’t think he’d leave her side. He’s so good with her.”

 

Robb felt his chest well at that. He knew, already, after only three days, that Grey Wind wouldn’t greet him until tomorrow morning, when he padded down the stairs next to Kitty, the little girl holding his fur to keep her steady on the stairs.

 

He took a bite and resisted the urge to moan.

 

“And after the park?,” he asked.

 

“We came back here and had some lunch, Kitty ate all of your hummus. I’m sorry, she _couldn’t_ be stopped,” she teased. He chuckled and made a mental note to get more at the store, “And then while she was napping I- I’m sorry, you don’t care about that, whe-“

 

“I care,” he corrected out of politeness, but was surprised to realise that he did.

 

She glanced at him warily, looking very much like Kitty, but she smiled and said, “I checked in with my contact in Essos and he assured me his _associate_ would arrive with the documents tomorrow, are you sure it’s alright if he brings them to your office?”

 

“Yeah,” he nodded, “I don’t want him coming here with you and Kitty in the house on your own.”

 

He took a bite and looked at her to prompt her to keep going and found her already looking at him. There was something in that look, something he hadn’t really seen before that made him feel stripped bare before her. He realised then that his niece had inherited her exacting gaze from her aunt.

 

It was gone in an instant and she asked, gesturing towards the bowl, “Is it alright?”

 

“Kitty is a wonderful chef,” he assured her and she smiled, “What else?”

 

“Well when she woke up from her nap it was time to start cooking, and then the afternoon passed quite quickly. I read her that book you brought home last night, by the gods she _loved_ it. She may insist that you call her Duncan tomorrow, and I’m sorry but _I_ am the green crayon. We decided that you could be the red crayon,” she told him gently, as though his hopes of green crayondom had been dashed unfairly.

 

“Sounds like a pretty good day,” he said enviously.

 

“The best we’ve had in a long time,” she told him earnestly.

 

The obvious relief in her voice made him feel selfish for being envious. They had been through so much, not just on the road he suspected, but back in King’s Landing as well. The fact that they had a whole day, just the two of them in a place that he hoped they were at least starting to feel safe, must have felt like a great feat to both of them. He wouldn’t be upset that he had not gotten to take part in it.

 

“I grabbed a book off the bookshelf, I hope that’s alright,” she went on, “I’ll get my own when we go to the bookstore on Saturday…”

 

“If you want,” he shrugged, “But don’t be shy about grabbing whatever you want off the shelf. What did you choose?”

 

“ _For All Days_ ,” she said with a soft smile, “It’s one of my favourites, I’ve read it a dozen times before but…”

 

It was one of his favourites too. He’d finished it for, well he wasn’t sure how many times he’d read it, but most recently just a few weeks ago. Every time he felt like he learned something different.

 

“So?,” she prompted, “I hope it was just the food on your date that wasn’t good?”

 

He was going to wave her off, tell her that she didn’t care about that, but she was looking at him like she just might.

 

He had told her about Roslin and his date the night before and she had smiled and said _Kitty and I are here to advise on wardrobe if needed_. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected her to say, but it wasn’t that, and he’d chuckled and nodded, telling her that he might have a tie conundrum in the morning.

 

It felt kind of trivial, to be going on a date with everything that was going on, but he didn’t want to just disappear on Roslin, and Ella had assured him that she wanted to disrupt his life as little as possible.

 

 _“I know it’s a ridiculous thing to say, given how wildly we have uprooted your life, but I’d like to think you could retain as much normalcy as possible,”_ she’d told him.

 

He had wanted to point out that she was the one whose life had been uprooted, but he didn’t. He’d learned quite quickly that she didn’t think of it that way and that she didn’t do well when he complimented her for it. He bristled a bit at that, that she felt like what was normal for her was a sacrifice for him, but he knew she didn’t mean anything by it. In truth she meant it kindly, it was just that she had helped raise Kitty and he hadn’t. She didn’t seem to even realise how she spoke of Kitty like she was her own daughter, it was just a part of who she was.

 

So he couldn’t help but tell her.

 

“I told Roslin about Kitty,” he explained.

 

_“What do you want me to say to that, Robb?,” Roslin asked._

 

_“I don’t know - I know it’s a lot to take in but -,” he trailed off._

 

_“So now your former lover is living in your house when you won’t even give me a key?,” she questioned._

 

_He sighed and rubbed his forehead. It always came back to the key. To them not moving forward._

 

_“It isn’t like that, you’ve been seeing what’s been going on down there just like I have. How could I turn them away?,” he asked her._

 

_“Well I understand your daughter, though I can’t believe in the eight months we’ve been dating you didn’t think to tell me about her, but why does the mother have to stay with you too?,” she asked._

 

_“Because she’s her mother,” he pointed out._

 

_“But-“_

 

_“No buts. She’s her mother. My daughter doesn’t know me. I’m not going to take her away from her mother and if you can’t understand that…”_

 

Ella sighed and grabbed the boiling kettle. She held it up and he nodded so she grabbed two mugs from the cabinet and brought out the bin that he had with different kinds of tea in it. She grabbed chamomile and held up a packet of mint for him. He nodded again.

 

“She must not be pleased about my being here,” she guessed correctly as she handed him his mug.

 

“It’s a lot for her,” he allowed.

 

He knew that, rationally. That if he had gone on a date with Roslin and she’d explained calmly that she had a daughter and that she and the man she’d had her with were living with her for an indeterminate amount of time he would have been uncomfortable with it. Even still, the pettiness of some of her arguments had grated him, and he found that in recent days he’d grown used to gentle pragmatism.

 

Ella pulled out one of the seats at the island and sat down, bringing her mug to her lips and blowing on it.

 

“Could you tell her? The truth?,” she wondered.

 

_Gentle pragmatism._

 

He could see the fear in her eyes when she offered that, but she was trying, she was trying so hard to do the right thing by everyone, to make this easier on Kitty and on him.

 

“No,” he assured her, “I don’t think so.”

 

“I’m sorry,” she offered and he could tell that she meant it.

 

She may be relieved that Kitty’s secret, their secret, would be safe, but she clearly took no joy in it. She also didn’t question why he would be with someone that he didn’t trust with that information, which he was grateful for, because he didn’t have an answer to that.

 

Roslin was sweet, when she wasn’t jealous, and beautiful. She wasn’t the most intellectually stimulating partner he could imagine but their relationship was a happy one. He didn’t want to hurt her, he wasn’t entirely sure that he loved her, but he was very fond of her and didn’t enjoy causing her concern.

 

None of that mattered though, when it came down to it.

 

“Kitty comes first,” he said.

 

“Kitty comes first,” Ella agreed.

 

***

 

“Seven hells,” Robb said under his breath.

 

Ella couldn’t help but chuckle at him. They were at a children’s clothing store and when the sales lady had seen the arms and arms full of clothing she’d picked out for Kitty, she’d requested a little fashion show. Kitty, in spite of being a quiet child, really adored attention, and had acquiesced.

 

Robb was the only man in the store, so Kitty was much more comfortable than she had been for some time. She smiled at all the other shoppers, most of whom were mothers and grandmothers, who all stopped what they were doing to tell her how adorable she was.

 

It was so nice to see her niece at ease in other people’s company, and she and Robb had relaxed a bit, letting her venture into the dressing room on her own except when she let out muffled calls of _AuntieElla_ when she was stuck inside a sweater.

 

The outfit that threw Robb right over the edge was a little navy blue sweater dress with a white collar and ruffled white socks underneath patent leather Mary Janes. The sales lady clearly knew what she was doing, because she put a little white headband in Kitty’s auburn curls as well.

 

“She’s so cute it makes me want to vomit,” he confessed.

 

She patted his arm sympathetically but she couldn’t help torturing him a little.

 

“Kitten, will you give us a little twirl?,” she prompted.

 

Her niece grinned and spun, the little skirt of the dress billowing up and revealing some bloomers.

 

“You are pure evil,” Robb scolded her and she giggled. He smiled when she did and they both turned their attention back to Kitty. “Well I think you need _all_ of it, don’t you honey?”

 

Kitty nodded excitedly, though she was not quite as excited as the sales lady who clearly worked on commission.

 

The clothing store was their third stop of the day. They had already been to the toy store, which had been a very quick trip. Kitty didn’t really like toys, but they had gotten her some new crayons and coloring books and a little stuffed dog that looked an awful lot like Grey Wind. They’d gone to the book store next which had been much more successful and they’d filled Robb’s trunk with bags. Kitty’s bookshelf had arrived yesterday and she was very excited to load it up.

 

They got Kitty back into her clothes and paid, though Robb pulled out the navy blue stadium coat and insisted Kitty put it on instead of her less warm puffy one. The sales lady snipped the tags for the hat and mittens that went with it and Ella was surprised to see that Kitty didn’t shrink away from Robb when he went to pull the hat on her head.

 

They were both kneeling down, getting Kitty prepped for the cold and he glanced over at her in surprise when he realised what Kitty had let him do. He looked so happy it was impossible not to be happy too, so she nudged her shoulder against his, not saying anything for fear of bringing Kitty’s attention to it.

 

“Such a beautiful family,” the sales lady said from behind them.

 

Robb and her stopped smiling immediately and her stomach dropped.

 

_How can we enjoy anything when we don’t know where Sansa is?_

 

Kitty didn’t stop smiling though and collapsed dramatically into her arms, fluttering her eyelashes up at her. It had been so long since she’d been so playful and Ella found that she didn’t have it in her heart to resist her.

 

And she knew that Sansa wouldn’t want her to.

 

_“Please, Sansa, you have to go. Please, I’ll come up with something. We’ll tell everyone you wanted to take her to Highgarden for the fall fashion shows or something…”_

 

_“No, Joffrey has been watching me like a hawk. Please, you’re the only one I trust.”_

 

_“Sansa…”_

 

_“Ella, please. You’re the only one who can keep her happy. And if something should -“_

 

_“Nothing is going to happen to you.”_

 

_“No Ella, let me say this. If something does happen to me, you’re the only one I trust to raise her the way I would. You’re the only one who will make her smile at the little things and help her through the big. She loves you as much as if you were her own mother. Please, Ella. Please.”_

 

“So much beauty in such a little face,” she cooed at Kitty, cupping her cheeks in her hands, “How does it all fit!?!”

 

With that she attacked her niece’s cheeks with kisses until she was a giggling mess.

 

When they exited the store she was grateful that Robb had insisted on Kitty bundling up. It was really starting to get cold, despite it being only November, and she drew her own coat tighter around herself. She’d have to go on her own shopping trip soon.

 

“There are some stores I can recommend for you if you want to go while Kitty is napping today,” Robb told her, as though he was reading her mind.

 

He looked like a sherpa, weighed down by the little pink shopping bags that Kitty’s booty had been packed up in.

 

She looked down at Kitty to see if she looked alarmed at the prospect of her leaving, but she smiled up at her and asked, “Will you get clothes like mine so we can be twins?”

 

She could have hugged Robb in that moment. He was so patient with her, he never pushed, but he radiated goodness and steadiness and Kitty seemed to be slowly gravitating towards him. Ella too couldn’t help but trust him and she found that she was no more nervous leaving Kitty with him than Kitty was at the idea of being left with him.

 

“I’ll try to find a navy blue sweater dress just like yours,” she promised.

 

“And you’ll do a fashion show for me and Un-for me and Daddy?,” Kitty prompted.

 

They had told her that she had to call them Mommy and Daddy when they were in public. She had grown used to calling her Mommy on the trip north and considering she’d never called Joffrey Daddy or anything if she could help it, it clearly hadn’t fazed her to use the name for Robb.

 

“Oh, uh…,” she blushed.

 

“Fair’s fair,” Robb teased, making her blush further. She narrowed her eyes at him and he grinned, “Something tells me I’m going to pay for that.”

 

“Oh I don’t know,” she sighed, “I’m just wondering how _you_ would look in a pair of patent leather Mary Janes.”

 

Kitty let out a shriek of laughter at the thought and Robb bent down and picked her up.

 

“Are you teasin’ me?,” he asked in a dopey voice. Kitty nodded and smooshed his cheeks, “Good. How about some hot chocolate?” Kitty leaned in and whispered something in his ear and he turned to her and grinned, “I think we can do that.”

 

So that was how twenty minutes later, as she and Kitty were sitting on a park bench, Robb came over to them with three to go cups.

 

“For you,” he said, handing the first to Kitty. “Blow on it first though, it’s hot.”

 

Ella bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. It was what she always said to Kitty before they ate. He must have heard it half a dozen times by now.

 

He then handed her one of the others and she made a big show of blowing on hers so that Kitty would do the same.

 

She took a tentative sip and nearly gurgled in delight.

 

“Apple cider? It’s my favourite, how did you know?,” she asked him.

 

“Oh I have spies everywhere,” he said and winked at Kitty.

 

“I’m a spy!,” Kitty told her.

 

“Very stealth, my love,” she joked and Robb chuckled, sitting down on Kitty’s other side.

 

She took another sip and settled back against the bench. Kitty climbed into her lap as she sipped her hot chocolate.

 

“Can we play the game?,” Kitty asked her.

 

Ella looked over the crowded park and smiled. “Oh I think this is a wonderful place to play it. Do you want to explain it to U-Daddy?”

 

Robb looked at her expectantly, sipping his own drink and Kitty straightened up as though she was about to convey sacred knowledge.

 

“So the way you play _is_ you choose somebody and you make up a story about who they are and what they are doing…,” Kitty started but trailed off when she saw tears welling Robb’s eyes. He sniffed and took a sip of his drink to play it off, but their niece was far too perceptive not to notice. “It… it’s Mommy’s favorite.”

 

Ella did enjoy the game, but she meant Sansa and they all knew it.

 

“I know, honey,” Robb nodded, “Who do you think taught it to her?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a monster who can't be stopped. I hope you are all enjoying this!

“How do I look?,” Roslin asked nervously.

 

“Beautiful, like always,” he told her honestly.

 

He’d picked her up on his way home from work. It was only 5 pm but they had a very important dinner engagement to make and she was wearing a red dress underneath her wool coat.

 

She’d called him on Sunday and they’d talked everything over. She’d told him that she’d been caught off guard and hadn’t handled it the way she would have liked. He’d told her that he understood that it was a lot to take in and she’d asked him if they could have dinner on Monday to talk about it more.

 

That had gone pretty well and so today, Thursday, he was bringing her back to the house to have dinner with Kitty and Ella.

 

Ella had offered to make herself scarce for the evening. On Saturday after dinner he’d told her more about Roslin’s concerns and she’d actually made him a bit more understanding of the whole thing. However, to his surprise it had been Roslin who insisted she wanted to meet Ella as well.

 

For some reason Ella was not surprised but she would not explain why.

 

“I hope she likes it,” Roslin said, gesturing to the present on her lap, “Walda said her girls are obsessed with it.”

 

“I’m sure she’ll love it, but you know you didn’t have to get her anything,” he told her, “She’s looking forward to meeting you.”

 

“She knows about me?,” she asked, grabbing hold of his hand.

 

“Yeah, of course,” he nodded, “Ella’s been prepping her.”

 

“ _Prepping_ her?,” Roslin questioned.

 

“Yeah, I mean she’s three… she’s really mature for her age, and really intelligent, but three year olds don’t really like transitions or interruptions to their routine, so it’s easier if you talk about changes before they happen…,” he told her.

 

He wasn’t really sure how he knew that. Maybe Ella had told him, but he couldn’t remember. He’d noticed it with Kitty though. She was pretty easy going, and he’d only seen her cry once when Grey Wind had cut his paw and he’d had to take him to the vet, but so much of that seemed to be from Ella preparing her for what was coming.

 

_Okay, my love, in a little bit I’m going to take you up for your bath._

 

_Alright, Kitten, tonight we are just going to read one book because you didn’t take a very long nap, did you?_

 

“Oh,” Roslin said, “Alright.”

 

He squeezed her hand as they pulled up in front of his house. She waited for him to come around and open her door, and she handed him the gift as she stepped out.

 

She let out a deep breath and said, “I just want her to like me because I like you.”

 

He smiled at her looking into her lovely light brown eyes, “I know, pretty girl. And she will like you, just like I do.”

 

They walked up to the front door and he unlocked it, to his surprise Kitty was standing there, Grey Wind sitting at her side, taller than her.

 

“ _Hello_ Mr. Stark, _Hello_ Miss Frey,” she said formally but warmly, “May I take your coats?”

 

“ _By the gods,”_ Roslin crumbled completely.

 

Ella had put her in the navy blue sweater dress, complete with the ruffled socks and Mary Janes, the white headband holding back her auburn curls.

 

“Are you our host for the evening?,” he asked her, crouching down and swiping her cheek.

 

“Yes Daddy,” she nodded. _Ella prepped her well_. Her voice turned a bit haughty when she prompted, “Your _coat_?”

 

He grinned and took his coat off, handing it to her. Roslin took hers off as well and laid it down on top of it.

 

He took the coats from her and hung them up in the hall closet.

 

“Kitty, this is Roslin,” he told her.

 

“Hello Roslin,” Kitty said in her sweet lilt.

 

“Hello Kitty,” Roslin said, “You’re very pretty.”

 

“Thank you, I like your dress.”

 

Things seemed to be off to a good start. Roslin beamed up at him and he rubbed her back.

 

“Is your Mommy in the kitchen?,” he asked Kitty.

 

“Yes, come on, I’ll get you some wine,” Kitty nodded, offering him her hand.

 

Roslin looked up at him incredulously and he shrugged, moving his hand to the small of her back and pulling her forward with them.

 

They all went into the kitchen but Ella was nowhere to be found.

 

Kitty looked up at him curiously, as did Roslin.

 

“El?,” he called.

 

“Oh Robb, thank the gods, do you have rosemary - oop nope! Found it!,” they heard from inside the pantry.

 

Kitty giggled and he chuckled down at her. He saw Ella come out of the pantry out of the corner of his eye and he looked up to introduce her to Roslin but his mouth went dry.

 

He’d forgotten what she’d looked like with her natural hair. You’d be a fool to deny her beauty no matter what shade her hair was, but the auburn was no match for the gold with her colouring.

 

She was wearing a light blue long sleeved dress that flowed around her to her knees and a pair of nude heels.

 

Roslin looked over at him but he found he still couldn’t speak. This had never happened to him before and he couldn’t have chosen a worse moment.

 

Like she always seemed to, Ella saved the day.

 

“Roslin! It is such a pleasure to meet you, we’ve been hearing all about you,” she said graciously, crossing over to her and offering her hand, “I’m Ella.”

 

“Hello,” Roslin said, shaking it briefly.

 

Ella’s smile didn’t falter as she went back to the stove and sprinkled rosemary on the fish she was making. Apparently sole was Kitty’s favorite. Only a three year old from King’s Landing would have sole as her favorite meal.

 

“Mommy the _wine_ ,” Kitty prompted her.

 

“I’ve got it, honey,” he assured her, now that he was able to speak again, “White for you, right Roslin? El did you find the other bottle of the red you like?”

 

“It’s on the table,” Ella nodded, picking up the skillet and transferring the fish to a platter. She picked it up and turned around, a slight blush on her cheeks though that was probably from the heat of the stove, “Shall we?”

 

***

 

“This is darling, did you make this?,” Roslin asked Kitty, gesturing to her place card.

 

Kitty nodded, a small smile on her face and then turned into Ella’s leg.

 

Robb grabbed the platter of fish from her so that she could bend down and pick Kitty up.

 

“ _Good?_ ,” she whispered in Kitty’s ear.

 

Kitty wrapped her arms around her neck tighter but nodded and she pressed a kiss into her hair before settling her in her booster seat.

 

Robb was already cutting up a piece of fish for her and had plopped a spoonful of risotto on the plate as well. Without thinking she went to rub his arm in thanks but she made eye contact with Roslin at the same time.

 

“What a good Daddy you have, huh?,” she asked Kitty, smacking Robb’s arm a bit too hard by mistake.

 

“Ow,” he teased and she chuckled. There was no way she’d hurt him.

 

She settled into her seat across from Kitty. She’d taken great pains with the seating chart. Robb and Kitty were easy enough in their usual places. She considered putting Roslin next to Robb, thinking she might want to be close to him, but then she didn’t want to place herself at the foot, because then Roslin might feel like they were joint hosts. She’d considered not putting anyone at the foot and sitting beside Kitty, but she didn’t want Roslin to feel like they were ganging up on her.

 

She used to be a whiz with a seating chart, Sansa always called to consult her when she was hosting a dinner party, and when she’d realised that she wanted to call Sansa to ask she realised just how trivial it all was.

 

So it was that Roslin sat at the foot of the table and Ella sat in her normal seat across from Kitty.

 

They all passed around the food and she smiled in thanks at Robb as he filled her wine glass.

 

She expected that he might start things off from a conversation point of view but he seemed to have lost the ability to speak today so she decided to.

 

“So Roslin, Robb told me you work for the art museum here, that must be amazing! Kitty loves art, don’t you?,” she asked.

 

Kitty nodded excitedly, “Daddy bought me crayons and I’ve been drawing a lot.”

 

“Oh I _love_ drawing,” Roslin told her, “Maybe you could show me some of your work after dinner?”

 

“You can draw too, if you want,” Kitty offered graciously. “I’ve got so many different colors!”

 

“Oooh _exciting_ ,” Roslin gushed, “Have you drawn your Daddy any pictures?”

 

“She has drawn me some _masterpieces_ ,” Robb said with a grin, “They are all in my office to help me get through long days.”

 

“I drew more today while Mommy was getting her hair done,” she told him, “You can bring them to work if you want.”

 

“Thank you, honey, I’d love to,” Robb said and then turned to her, “Yeah I uh…noticed your hair.”

 

“Oh,” Ella said and touched it out of habit, “Yeah well… with everything a bit more _settled_ ,” she noted meaningfully. Her and Kitty’s updated papers had been late but they’d finally arrived, “I was ready to go back. I don’t think I pulled off the red very well.”

 

“Nonsen-,” Robb started but Roslin cut him off.

 

“More settled? Does that mean you’ll be moving out soon?,” Roslin asked her pointedly, then added in a saccharine voice, “This is delicious by the way.”

 

“Thank you,” Ella said as calmly as she was able.

 

“Roslin,” Robb said in a tone she’d never heard before.

 

“Just making conversation,” Roslin smiled at him.

 

_Annnnd this is why you were worried about the seating arrangements._

 

“Kitty you are such a pretty girl,” Roslin said sweetly, then less so when she added, “You’re so lucky you look just like your handsome father.”

 

_Actually she looks just like her beautiful mother, you wench._

 

“I have my Mommy’s eyes,” Kitty told her stubbornly.

 

_Oh my loyal, brave girl._

 

Kitty had never associated her eyes with Joffrey, only her.

 

_Look Auntie Ella, we’re twins._

 

_Twins, or soulmates, my love. Either way, I’m yours and you’re mine._

 

“Yes you do, honey,” Robb agreed with her, adding stupidly, “They’re the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen.”

 

Roslin dropped her fork and Ella sprung up.

 

“Here I’ll get you a new one,” she said, glaring at Robb as she left the dining room.

 

She went into the kitchen and took a few deep breaths. She had known this dinner was a bad idea. With Kitty getting more comfortable with Robb she had been more than happy to go see a movie or something and let Roslin meet her on her own.

 

Apparently Roslin had insisted though and she didn’t want it to seem like they were hiding anything.

 

She grabbed a clean fork and smoothed her dress and went back into the dining room with a smile on her face.

 

“Here you go,” she said, placing it down at Roslin’s side. She crossed to Kitty and said, “How are you doing with your dinner, Kitten?”

 

“It’s _really_ good Mommy, I like the _riiiiizzzoooottto_ ,” she said at Robb.

 

“ _Riiiiizzzooooottto_ ,” Robb intoned back at her making her giggle.

 

She smoothed Kitty’s hair and went back to her seat and finally tried a bite of her dinner.

 

“You know where everything is,” Roslin pointed out.

 

“Oh! Yes well, with Kitty it’s important that I know where the emergency stash of hummus is, isn’t that right, my love?,” she asked Kitty lightly.

 

“How do you come and go when Robb isn’t here?,” she asked.

 

“Roslin,” Robb growled.

 

She glanced at him and he shook his head so she ignored Roslin’s question and tried to smile reassuringly at Kitty. Her niece was starting to look at her the way she did when men had sat in the row across from them on the bus, like she was wondering if Ella was paying attention.

 

She winked at Kitty. _Always_.

 

“You have a key, don’t you?,” Roslin pressed.

 

“Of _course_ she has a key, they are living here,” Robb pointed out.

 

Ella crossed her eyes at Kitty but her niece didn’t smile the way she usually would and she’d stopped eating completely.

 

“Are you making fun of me?,” Roslin asked.

 

“No! Of course not,” Ella shook her head, feeling terrible, “I was just -“

 

“She was just trying to make Kitty, the person you are here to get to know, smile,” Robb told her.

 

Roslin ignored him and turned to her.

 

“Look, Ella, I’m going to say this to you because Robb won’t,” Roslin started. She hadn’t noticed him until now but Grey Wind was now sitting by her, pressed against the side closes to Roslin. She stroked his head softly, willing him to calm down, though his soft fur was doing more to calm her. “You can’t stay here forever, it isn’t appropriate and-“

 

“ _Damn it, Roslin!_ ,” Robb exclaimed, slapping his palm on the table “Do you have any idea what they’ve been through?”

 

“Kitty, are you finished eating?,” she asked. Her niece looked at her, her lower lip trembling and nodded. She stood up and crossed over to her, “Okay my love, how about we say goodnight and then you and I go change into our pajamas and watch a movie together in my big bed? It will be a special treat.”

 

She unbuckled Kitty and her niece was already jumping into her arms. She wrapped her up and pressed a kiss to her temple, rubbing her back.

 

“Oh Kitty, darling,” Roslin said, “There’s no reason to overreact.”

 

_Wrong move, bitch._

 

She walked Kitty over to the other side of the table and placed her down behind Grey Wind. She stroked the dog’s head and said, “Go on boy, take her upstairs.”

 

“You,” Kitty ordered.

 

“I’ll just be a minute my love, you start thinking about what we are going to watch and I’ll bring us some _chocolate_ , okay? Now go on, hold tight to Grey Wind on the stairs,” she said as gently as she could.

 

Kitty never argued with her and Grey Wind nudged her with his snout. On a different occasion Ella would have made her say goodnight to Roslin and Robb, but this was not a different occasion.

 

When they heard them thumping up the stairs she turned to Roslin.

 

“Roslin, I understand this is a difficult situation for you and I commend you for wanting to get to know Kitty, but I think we can all agree that the time to voice your discomfort is not in front of a three year old,” she said as calmly as she was able. “In fact, I think whatever discussions are going to take place about this should happen solely between you and Robb, but I will say this, if you ever make Kitty feel uncomfortable for living in this house again that will be the last time you ever see her.”

 

“Ella…,” Robb started.

 

“She’ll be fine,” she told him, “But please tell me have some chocolate.”

 

“It’s on the top shelf of the pantry,” he said quietly.

 

She went and grabbed it and then took the back stairs up to the second floor. She found Kitty laying on her floor on top of Grey Wind.

 

“Hiya Kitten,” she said with a smile.

 

“Hiya Auntie Ella,” Kitty said softly, clearly not wanting to give anything away, but not wanting to have to pretend either. She knelt down on the floor and drew Kitty into her lap. “Does Uncle Robb want us to leave?”

 

_Roslin Frey, you are on my list._

 

“No, my love,” she told her, “Do you know what he told me yesterday morning?”

 

“What?,” Kitty asked.

 

“That coming downstairs hearing your giggle in the morning made him want to get out of bed,” she told her, “He loves having you here. How could he not?”

 

“I don’t think Mommy would like Roslin,” Kitty confessed. “I don’t think Uncle Robb does either.”

 

_Maybe not anymore._

 

“Sometimes people have fights but it doesn’t mean they don’t like each other,” she said.

 

“Uncle Robb slammed his hand on the table, like Father did,” Kitty said, and Ella’s stomach clenched, pulling her closer, “But he isn’t anything like Father, right?”

 

“No, he was just upset because he didn’t like that you were upset,” Ella tried to explain.

 

_A three year old should not have to know the difference._

 

Not for the first time, Ella realised that she might just kill her brother one of these days. He was a bully, he’d always been a bully. _And now he has too much power._ It wouldn’t just be a gift to Kitty or Sansa, the whole of the south would rejoice.

 

She didn’t have time to think of Joffrey or the south now. _Only her._

 

She got Kitty into her pajamas and then changed into her own. They climbed into her big bed and turned on Sleeping Beauty.

 

Kitty sat in her lap, playing with the ends of her hair. She had been very excited for the return of her blonde hair and had been playing with it all day.

 

“Will you sing along?,” Kitty asked.

 

***

 

Robb climbed the stairs and was prepared to knock on Ella’s door but found it ajar.

 

_“You’ll love me at once, the way you did once upon a dream… I know you I walked with you once upon a dream…”_

 

He truly didn’t mean to spy on them but they looked so lovely together. Kitty was sitting in Ella’s lap, her head resting against her shoulder, her fingers trailing through Ella’s golden hair as her aunt sang to her in a voice even sweeter than the actress’.

 

“Prince Philip!,” Kitty called to him and Ella stopped singing and blushed.

 

“Hello Princess,” he said to Kitty.

 

“Are you still upset?,” she asked him.

 

“No, honey,” he sighed, “I’m sorry if I scared you.”

 

“Auntie Ella said you were sad because I was sad,” Kitty told him, and not for the first time he realised how indebted he was to Ella.

 

“I was,” he told her, crossing into the room and sitting down on the bed facing them, “I won’t let anyone make you sad if I can help it.”

 

“Or Auntie Ella?,” Kitty prompted.

 

“Kitten…,” Ella warned gently.

 

“She was _mean_ to you,” Kitty argued.

 

“Or Auntie Ella,” he confirmed, “I didn’t like what she was saying to either of you. This is your _home_ , you understand that, don’t you?” Kitty nodded and he looked at Ella and raised his eyebrows at her until she nodded too. “We aren’t going to be seeing Roslin anymore.”

 

“Robb!,” Ella exclaimed.

 

He held up his hand though and shook his head. It had been a rather short conversation.

 

_“Are you proud of what you just did?,” he asked._

 

_“You’re in love with her!”_

 

_“I am not in love with her,” he said as calmly as he was able._

 

_“Your jaw nearly hit the floor when you saw her tonight!”_

 

_“I was just surprised. She changed -“_

 

_“Her hair, I know. You could have told me she looked like that.”_

 

_“It doesn’t matter what she looks like, this is about Kitty.”_

 

_“You’re a fucking fool,” Roslin chuckled harshly, “And I know the way this goes. I’m not going to sit around here and wait while you play house with the girl who wasn’t smart enough to ask you to wear a condom!”_

 

It hadn’t gone very well after that. He wasn’t entirely sure why he was so angry about that comment, considering that he had never slept with Ella, wearing a condom or otherwise, but he was.

 

He’d been disgusted with the way Roslin had spoken to Ella and when she’d told Kitty, a frightened three year old that she was _overreacting_ he had been ready to throw her out.

 

“Do you want to watch with us, Uncle Robb?,” Kitty asked.

 

He looked at Ella curiously and she patted the space on the other side of her.

 

He grinned and took off his shoes and suit jacket and undid his tie and then walked over and climbed on the bed.

 

“Who’s that?,” he asked Kitty.

 

“Prince _Philip_ ,” she told him. “You look like him.”

 

He chuckled, “I do not.”

 

“You actually kind of do,” Ella said with a yawn.

 

Kitty crawled out of her lap and collapsed into his arms. He was forgiven, it seemed and he held her close and stroked her beautiful auburn curls.

 

He turned his attention on the movie, wondering if they’d have to fast forward when it got to the part with the dragon. He remembered that frightening Sansa when she was a little girl.

 

“Uncle Robb,” Kitty whispered in his ear.

 

He looked down at her and saw her pointing at Ella. She had fallen asleep, her golden hair splayed out against the pillows. The dark circles under both of their eyes had finally started to go away, and her long lashes kissed the tops of her cheeks, a small smile on her light pink lips.

 

“Auntie Ella is Sleeping Beauty, isn’t she?,” Kitty whispered.

 

“Yeah, honey,” he agreed, “She definitely is.”

 

“You’ll have to tuck me in tonight,” she warned.

 

He suppressed the chuckle and nodded, “I will.”

 

But he didn’t, and he didn’t have to worry about fast forwarding through the dragon parts because they both fell asleep long before they came to it.

 

He woke up in the middle of the night and considered going to his own room, but they were both holding onto him, and he didn’t have it in him to leave them. So instead he pulled them both closer.

 

_I don’t know where you are, Sansa, but I know what you did. You sent me all your treasures, the ones you couldn’t stand to leave behind._

 

_I’ll keep them safe for you, I promise, just come and get them soon for I’ve begun to feel like a thief._

 

 

_***_

 

The idea for the ending came from seeing this picture. It gave me major Robbcella vibes but I didn't want to write a whole fic around it. 

 


	6. Chapter 6

Robb looked at his calendar. _December 1st._

 

It had been a month since Kitty and Ella had arrived. A month since the mystery of where his little sister was began.

 

He had no more answers now than he had then. They hadn’t had a word from Sansa, no sign, or anything.

 

Ella checked in with her contacts in the south and in Essos as often as was reasonably considered safe. The last anyone had heard, a beautiful woman with dark brown hair named Alayne Stone had arrived in the Vale. That was three weeks ago.

 

He had his own contacts but they had no more luck and they were not the only ones looking for her. Just the other day one of his men had a run in with one of Joffrey’s that neither had survived.

 

In spite of the unconventional nature of their situation, they had come to a bit of a routine. Kitty needed one, like all kids did, and it gave him at least a sense of sanity amidst all the unknowns.

 

Every day the news was filled with more horrors from the south. It was now considered illegal to be a member of the opposition party, a rally one of the candidates had held only the week before had been savaged by the police force and the images of the victims had been haunting. He and Ella had been watching the news after Kitty had gone to sleep and Ella had gotten up wordlessly.

 

“ _Ella, I’ll turn it off,” he sighed, not wanting her to leave because of it. Or at all._

 

_“Don’t,” she ordered, walking over to the bar and grabbing the bottle of bourbon and two glasses. She brought them back over and put them down on the coffee table. She poured them each a healthy glass and handed him one. “To the patriots.”_

 

_“To the patriots,” he repeated._

 

_He went to sip his but saw that she was knocking hers all the way back so he did the same. She poured them each another and picked hers up, leaning back on the couch and tucking her legs up underneath her. She looked so small, and so young._

 

_“There’s nothing you can do for them,” he told her quietly._

 

_Her green gaze levelled him, “You don’t know me very well.”_

 

That had frightened him, the determination he heard in her voice. This was not a girl who was going to be content to stay safe in the north forever, not while her country fell into disrepair, not when it was at the hands of her family.

 

_“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said honestly because the girl in front of him was capable of raising armies._

 

_“This is worse than the Targaryen Purge,” she said, noting the series of events that had caused the north to revolt. He did not need to be reminded of that time, his own uncle and grandfather had been caught up in that and he had been raised fearing tyrants because of it. “This is worse, and the south is bleeding for it, my country is bleeding for it and what am I doing? Going to the zoo.”_

 

_“You’re protecting a three year old girl until her mother can,” he pointed out._

 

_“Until her mother can,” she repeated._

 

_“Ella…,” he started._

 

_“Robb.”_

 

_“Please don’t talk like that.”_

 

_“You should know, the minute Sansa gets here I am going back.”_

 

He had walked away from her then. They had never argued before and he was not going to argue with her then, not when she was upset and frightened and so incredibly brave.

 

They hadn’t talked about it the next morning but their eyes had met when Kitty said _“Auntie Ella, when Mommy comes can we bring her to feed the ducks?”_

 

He had to give it to her, she never lied to their niece. All she said was, _“I think your Mommy would love it if you showed her the ducks. Quack, quack!”_

 

Kitty didn’t pick up on it, but he did and he’d placed a terse kiss on the back of Kitty’s head and left for the day without another word.

 

They never spoke about it again and they developed a semblance of normalcy. In spite of the fear and the uncertainty, he found himself happy to go home every evening.

 

He’d walked into a few _disasters_ , the normal, every day kind that made him feel like things might just be alright. One night Ella had tried, at Kitty’s request, making falafel and everything had exploded, and he walked into find Grey Wind licking the lower cabinets and Kitty and Ella covered in tzatziki, giggling as they tried to keep it out of their eyes.

 

_“I’ll go pick us up some pizza,” he grinned, fanning the smoke alarm so it wouldn’t go off._

 

_“Our heeeeero,” Kitty cooed at him as Ella wiped the little girl’s face._

__

His niece had become the light of his life, and he didn’t understand how he had lived three years without really knowing her. She wasn’t just sweet, she was _good_ , to her core. Kind and loyal, with an imbedded sense of morality that would tell anyone who knew anything that she was Ned Stark’s granddaughter.

 

She was deeply intelligent too, like her mother, and her aunt. They hadn’t enrolled her in preschool. They hadn’t spoken about it, but to him it would be like admitting defeat. Like admitting this wasn’t temporary. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do when this period of his life was over, but even still he wished for its end every day because that would mean Sansa was here and safe.

 

So instead, Ella had taken on her education. He was sure they were working at a faster pace than any preschool program in the north, and every night Kitty would tell him what she’d learned. He wouldn’t be surprised if she was reading before the New Year and she had a remarkable memory, Ella taught her different songs all the time.

 

He knew he wasn’t doing nearly his share, but Ella never said anything, thanking him whenever he contributed. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, but he had to maintain appearances and continue to run his company. He had ended travel though, citing the need to stay close to home, and did his best to be home for dinner every night. His weekends were devoted to Kitty, and he took her off every Saturday morning to give Ella a little time to herself. He cherished that time with his niece, but always looked forward to Ella’s bright face when she came to meet them for dinner, bringing her own stories and a present for Kitty and often one for him. _“Oh I couldn’t resist!”_

 

His assistant Alys walked into his office, breaking him out of his thoughts.

 

“Mr. Stark, your 2 o’clock is in the conference room,” she said, holding the folder he’d need for the meeting.

 

“Thank you, Alys, I’ll be right-,” he started but then his phone starting ringing. “It’s Ella, I have to take this, can you let them know I’ll be just a minute?”

 

“Of course, Mr. Stark,” she said, closing the door behind her.

 

“Hey El, I’m just step-“

 

“Robb, you need to come home. _Now_.”

 

***

 

“Auntie Ella?,” Kitty prompted as she sat at the island in her booster seat.

 

“Yes Kitten?,” Ella asked as she finished making her peanut butter and jelly.

 

“Will you tell me a Mommy story?,” she asked, taking a sip of her milk.

 

These requests were getting fewer and farther between. On the journey north, she had asked multiple times a day, and they’d spent long bus rides curled up together as she told Kitty about the time Sansa had gone to every florist in King’s Landing to find her the perfect peony for her birthday or what she’d said to the mean nurse when Ella had come down with pneumonia and she didn’t want to let her in the room. That had nearly got them banned from King’s Landing General, despite the fact that the Lannisters were the largest benefactors of it.

 

In the past week though, she’d only asked once. She and Robb tried to bring Sansa up in conversation at dinnertime but Kitty always changed the topic.

 

_“Do you think she’s angry?,” Robb asked as they did the dishes one night. “Do you think she feels abandoned by her?”_

 

_“I don’t know,” Ella said honestly, “I don’t know what the right thing is… I know she misses her, we still pray for her every night. Maybe it’s just too painful… it’s been nearly two months since she’s seen her.”_

 

_“Where in seven hells is she?,” he growled, angrily scrubbing a pan._

 

_She patted his arm and he glared at her before relinquishing the sponge._

 

_“I don’t know,” she told him again._

 

_There was nothing more to say than that, they were both doing everything they could, which wasn’t much at all._

 

_She finally removed the bit of grease that was stuck and rinsed the pan in the soapy water before handing it to him to dry._

 

_He tried for a smile and said, “You make it look so easy.”_

 

_She looked up into his blue eyes, the ones that no longer reminded him of his sister, the ones that had a depth all their own. They were the ones she looked to now when she was feeling frightened or overwhelmed. The ones who made her feel like she wasn’t alone._

 

_“None of this is easy.”_

 

“Of course I will, my love,” she nodded, “Would you like an old one or a new one?”

 

“A new one,” Kitty determined, taking a bite of her sandwich.

 

“Ooh how about I tell you about _The Great Sunburn of 2014_?,” she suggested, thinking about the time she and Sansa had gone to the Southern Isles. “It has ev-,” she started but heard the doorbell ring. Kitty looked at her curiously and Ella guessed, “Oh maybe it’s the present we ordered for Uncle Robb’s birthday?”

 

Robb didn’t know it, but he was having a surprise party. It was only going to be the three of them, and Grey Wind, but they had already bought party hats and streamers.

 

“Yay!,” Kitty grinned.

 

“I’ll be right back, Kitten,” she told her and headed towards the front door.

 

Grey Wind came with her as he always did and she patted his big head. She opened the door and her heart stopped.

 

She had dreamed of this moment every night since she’d left King’s Landing. All the nights on buses and in motel rooms, all the nights she fell asleep in her big bed, she had dreamed of this exact moment.

 

“ _Myrcella Baratheon_ ,” Varys said, “Well this _is_ a surprise. Your family has been looking everywhere for you.”


	7. Chapter 7

Though the commute usually took twenty minutes from his home to his office, he made it home in nine. He’d yelled an apology at Alys as he’d sprinted to the elevator and had run every red light.

 

He had never before heard Ella afraid and it chilled him to his bones. She was dauntless and pragmatic, brave to a fault, far braver than him he had no doubt. The fear in her voice had been profound and he found it now coursing through his own veins.

 

He ran in the front door but did not see any of them.

 

“El?,” he called.

 

“Up here,” she called back.

 

The fear was gone from her voice now, it was replaced with something far more common in her tone - determination.

 

He took the stairs two at a time and walked by her closed door to Kitty’s bedroom. It was in a state of upheaval, she had a suitcase open on the bed and was currently folding a sweater.

 

“Where’s Kitty?,” he wondered.

 

“I put her down for her nap early,” Ella informed him, “I’ll finish packing her up, you need to pack a bag for yourself and get a car. You can’t take yours. You need to leave this afternoon.”

 

She hardly even looked at him, she just walked purposefully around the room, going into Kitty’s pajama drawer and pulling out a few pairs.

 

“Ella,” he started, taking the pajamas from her, “Stop packing for a minute and tell me what happened.”

 

“My family knows that I’m here,” she said calmly and it hit him like a dagger in his heart. “Or if they don’t already, they will soon. There’s a man, Varys,” she noted, glancing at him. He nodded, it was all he was able to do. He knew the name. They called him the Spider. No one escaped his web. “He came here today. I think he must have been looking for Sansa, but he found me instead.”

 

It had been his greatest fear since before Ella and Kitty had shown up. That they would send someone after Sansa and her daughter. It was an inevitability, really.

 

Which was why he had prepared for it.

 

“Alright, you finish packing. I’ll grab my things. We don’t need to rent a car I just need to change the plates,” he started making a checklist in his mind.

 

“Change the plates?,” she asked.

 

He could not help but grin at her, “Did you think you were the only one with friends on the dark side? Pack as much as you want, you don’t have to keep it all to one suitcase like before, but we’ll leave within the hour.”

 

He went to go to his room. He already had a bag together for this occasion but he’d add a few more things to it and then pack up Grey Wind’s things.

 

“Robb, wait!,” she called. He turned around and looked at her expectantly. Her face was sympathetic when she said, “I’m not coming with you.”

 

 _You need to leave this afternoon_.

 

“Of course you are,” he stated simply.

 

Today was a day of firsts, for there were tears in her eyes now which he’d never seen.

 

“No, it isn’t safe. They didn’t see Kitty but they know that I am here, and they will come for me.”

 

“Which is why you’ll be far from here when they do,” he argued.

 

She nodded, one tear falling down her smooth cheek, “And far away from Kitty. I’ll go to Braavos, maybe Volantis. Don’t tell me where you are taking her, just take her and _go_.”

 

He stepped towards her, shaking his head, not comprehending what she was saying.

 

“No, we stay together. You are coming with us. Of course you are.”

 

“Don’t you understand what I’m telling you? It isn’t _safe_. My grandfather doesn’t care about Kitty, but he will use her to keep me loyal. And if Joffrey gets a hold of her… he will use her to control Sansa. The way he has _always_ used her to control Sansa. We have to do what is right for her.”

 

“You! You are what is right for Kitty. You are her entire world. You can’t just leave her now. You can’t just abandon her!”

 

_Like Sansa did._

 

He didn’t say it but the look in her eyes told him that she’d heard it. It was the deepest secret they never spoke out loud to one another, the one that they hated themselves for thinking on occasion.

 

“I am _not_ abandoning her,” she argued, “I’m leaving her in your care. She loves you, you can make her understand, you -“

 

He’d had enough. They were wasting time and she didn’t understand. She didn’t get that this wasn’t a discussion. They didn’t have equal says in this. He’d throw her over his shoulder and take her kicking and screaming if he had to but she was getting in the car and she was going north. He’d tie her up and gag her if she fought him, he didn’t care if she hated him for it.

 

He crossed to her and grabbed her as gently as he could by the arms.

 

“ _I’m not going anywhere without you!_ ,” he raged at her. She let out a little cry and tried to push him away but he moved his hands up to cup her cheeks and she scrunched his jacket in her hands, “Do you hear me? We are not leaving you behind.”

 

“Kitty…,” she said no more than that, but no more was needed.

 

Their niece was every protest, every rallying cry. The little girl that they would both lay down their lives to protect.

 

“Will be safe. I promise you. I need you to believe that I’ll keep her safe, that I will keep you both safe.”

 

“They’re going to come for me,” she warned him softly, but the fight was gone from her. Fear was back in her beautiful green eyes, but so was defeat. “I know too much.”

 

“They can send the whole damn southern army for all I care,” he dismissed, “They’re not getting their hands on either one of you… I’m taking you to the safest place in the north.”

 

***

 

They were on the road a half hour later. Robb had apparently been prepared for this exact situation and had deftly unscrewed his license plates and put on new ones while she buckled Kitty into her carseat and got Grey Wind settled next to her.

 

They’d woken Kitty up right before they were meant to leave and her resolve belied her age. She had grown used to her waking her up at all hours for them to be on the move and she only sought reassurance that both she and Robb, and Grey Wind, were coming along. She fell back asleep as soon as Robb pulled onto the highway.

 

Ella felt a strange calm looking at her niece asleep in her carseat, with Grey Wind’s head covering her lap, her little hand scrunched in his fur. It made no sense, but she felt as though nothing bad could ever happen to the little girl if Grey Wind was with her. It wasn’t fair, to put that much responsibility on him, but she stroked his head and his kind eyes seemed to accept it before he let out a sigh and stretched and promptly fell asleep.

 

“Where are we going?,” she asked Robb once she’d turned around.

 

“I thought you didn’t want to know,” he practically spat at her.

 

He had never spoken to her like that. Even that first day when he had every reason to be angry with her, when he had every reason to distrust her, he had never used an unkind tone when he spoke to her.

 

“You’re angry,” she pointed out unnecessarily.

 

“You’re damn right I’m angry,” he agreed, but the fight was out of his voice.

 

“I was trying to do what was right for Kitty,” she argued.

 

“By leaving her,” he grumbled.

 

“Because I would rather her be alive, be _free_ ,” she explained. She turned around to make sure Kitty was still sleeping before she went on, and saw her eyelids fluttering in a dream. She turned back around and looked straight ahead, trying to get the images of the protesters and the children being separated from their parents out of her mind, but she couldn’t. She never could. She’d tried to tell him this in Kitty’s bedroom but he hadn’t wanted to hear it. She doubted he would now, but she had to try to make him understand. “If they catch us, Robb… they’ll… she’ll be used as a tool to keep Sansa and I loyal.”

 

“He’d hurt her? His own daughter?,” Robb asked incredulously.

 

He was the best man that she knew. Kind and brave and selfless. He was deeply intelligent, there was no doubt of that, but someone as good as him could have no chance of understanding the depths of evil that some people were capable of.

 

She glanced over at him and he looked at her briefly. He nodded, _I can take it_ and she grimaced, _No you can’t_.

 

“He’d kill her just to make me and Sansa watch,” she said softly.

 

Robb banged on the steeling wheel so hard she thought he might break his hand, but all he succeeded in doing was honking the horn by mistake.

 

“AnEllaUnRobb?!,” Kitty exclaimed, being woken out of her sleep.

 

“Sorry honey,” Robb said sincerely in a tone far kinder than she would have imagined he was capable of in that moment.

 

It looked like it took all of the energy that he had in his whole body to do it.

 

“There was a _big_ moose in the road and Uncle Robb didn’t want to hurt him,” she made up on the fly, hoping Kitty would believe her and fall back asleep.

 

“A _moose_?!,” Kitty exclaimed, clearly energised by this delightful bit of information. “Is he okay?”

 

“Oh he’s _fine_ , he was a _little_ annoyed with Uncle Robb though,” she babbled like a lunatic.

 

“ _Uncle Robbbbb_ ,” Kitty admonished.

 

“Hey maybe the moose was annoying me, why doesn’t anyone consider that?,” Robb teased.

 

This struck Kitty as hilarious and she let out her tinkling giggle and started imagining what the moose might have said to Robb.

 

Robb’s eyes met hers briefly, giving her a look that made it clear that he thought exactly like she did. That Kitty was the greatest gift either of them would ever have, that her innocence was not of this world and that it was something deeply in need of protection.

 

_Do you understand now? That I couldn’t risk her? Don’t you understand that protecting her is the only reason I’d ever leave her? That I’d ever leave you?_

 

She turned away to look out the window so that he would not see the tears pooling in her eyes. As she packed Kitty up before he came home she hadn’t allowed herself to think about it. To think about what it would mean not to see them every day. To not wake up to Kitty and Grey Wind jumping on her bed and smothering her in kisses, to not end each day with Robb, sitting up and talking or watching television or even reading side by side.

 

She felt his large hand covering hers and looked down at it in disbelief. She looked at him and his eyes were on the road, but he interlaced his fingers with hers. She picked up their hands in her other one and hugged them to her chest.

 

“You told me that you were going back,” he said after a while, “When Sansa gets to the north.”

 

“I am,” she nodded, because even if it was not today there would be a day when she had to leave them. She had always known that. “As soon as Sansa and Kitty are safe I’m going to return south and destroy my family… From within if I have to.”

 

He switched lanes, accelerating and switching again. He swallowed hard and squeezed her hand.

 

“I’m coming with you,” he told her, his voice matching the grim determination present in her own.

 

“It’s not your fight,” she pointed out.

 

“How can you say that?”

 

“Because Starks never fare well in the south.”

 

***

 

By midnight his eyelids were starting to droop. They’d been on the road for nearly ten hours and had made good progress, but they had at least another ten before they’d make it to their destination.

 

“I can drive,” Ella offered. “I slept a bit.”

 

“For twenty minutes,” he pointed out. She’d fallen asleep briefly and apologised profusely when she woke up. She took her job as copilot very seriously. “There’s a hotel a few miles up ahead, we’ll stay there for the night and get back on the road in the morning.”

 

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?,” she asked gently.

 

“Would I risk it if it weren’t?,” he asked gently back.

 

He chanced a glance at her and she shook her head. She hadn’t fought him since they’d been in the car, he wouldn’t have blamed her if she had. She had seemed though, to take him at his word, that he would keep them both safe.

 

It was a heady feeling, being trusted by her.

 

He took the exit and pulled into the parking lot of a chain hotel. It wasn’t the type of place that any of them would have stayed by choice, but he knew it was far nicer than some of the places she and Kitty had stayed in on their way north and they didn’t need much for the night.

 

He parked the car and pulled out his wallet.

 

“I’m going to take Grey Wind for a quick walk, I’ll grab the bags on the way in. Take this,” he said, handing her a large group of bills, “Offer to pay double if they’ll take cash and will put us under Jane Doe.”

 

She knitted her eyebrows and to his surprise he saw her smirking, “Have you done this before? That’s _my_ move.”

 

He couldn’t help but grin at her, because she found a way to find joy in the small things even when the big ones were imploding. It was one of the reasons Sansa had chosen exactly right. One of the reasons he knew that he’d done right for Kitty by making her come with them.

 

It made him feel less selfish. Because the truth was, he couldn’t bear to let her go.

 

“Well then, we’ll _rendezvous_ in the lobby in ten minutes,” he joked and they got out of the car.

 

He walked Grey Wind quickly, who had pulled on the leash whimpering as Ella walked away with Kitty in her arms. Grey Wind sensed his and Ella’s discomfort and had been on top of their niece the entire ride. If anything happened to him or Ella, Robb knew at least that Grey Wind would protect her with his life.

 

He went back to the car and grabbed the three small overnight bags that were separate from the rest of their larger suitcases as well as Grey Wind’s food and bowls and locked up the car. He’d have to change the plates again in the morning but he didn’t want to do it in the dark.

 

He walked into the lobby to find Ella already waiting for him. Kitty was awake but in her arms, blinking sleepily at him and Grey Wind when they walked in.

 

The bags were light and balanced on his shoulder so he took Kitty from Ella. She took Grey Wind’s leash as Kitty settled against him, her little arms and legs wrapped around him.

 

“How are you doing, honey?,” he asked, rubbing her back as they got onto the elevator.

 

She had shown no signs of alarm when he and Ella had woken her up to tell her they were leaving. She had only wanted to make sure that both of them and Grey Wind were coming and had asked if it was okay if she brought her new coloring book.

 

She was nearly as fearless as her aunt, and completely fearless when she was with her.

 

“Sleepy,” she yawned, resting her head against his shoulder, “You’re a better pillow than Auntie Ella, but don’t tell her.”

 

He smiled against her hair and promised not to. Ella had heard and smiled to herself as she stroked Grey Wind’s head.

 

They got off the elevator and Ella lead them down to their room. She inserted the key and pushed the door open, turning on the light to reveal a large room with a couch and a king sized bed.

 

“This was all they had,” she said apologetically, “No double rooms.”

 

“Oh,” he nodded, “That’s alright. You guys take the bed and I’ll take the couch.”

 

“Don’t be silly, you’ve got a long day of driving ahead of you and there’s more than enough room for all of us, isn’t there Kitten? Unless you plan on sleeping like a _starfish_?,” Ella teased.

 

He tossed Kitty gently on the bed and she spread her arms and legs like a starfish until Grey Wind hopped up on the bed and licked her face.

 

“Alright, my love, let’s brush our teeth and get into pjs quick quick quick,” Ella told Kitty.

 

Their niece hopped off the bed and Ella grabbed their duffle bags and brought her into the bathroom. Robb pulled out Grey Wind’s food and poured some into a bowl for him. He’d grab him water when they were out and he patted him gently as he attacked his dinner.

 

Now that he was alone he took out the burner phone he had and dialled the familiar number.

 

“‘lo?,” a groggy voice asked.

 

“You’re getting soft in your old age, asleep before two,” he chided.

 

“That’s coz I was up working at two, unlike you in your frilly little office,” he rebutted.

 

“I’m in a bad spot,” Robb said, not mincing his words. There was no need for it, between the two of them. “And I’m heading to you.”

 

“That’s what I always said you should do if you were in a bad spot,” he said loyally.

 

“I’ll be there around 6 tomorrow. Can’t tell you anymore than that.”

 

“Didn’t ask. Until then.”

 

“Farewell Snow.”

 

“And you Stark.”

 

The bathroom door opened and Kitty and Ella walked out wearing matching light blue silk pajama sets. They both had their hair up in buns on top of their heads and they looked so innocent and beautiful that it filled him with a white, hot rage.

 

_He’d kill her just to make me and Sansa watch._

 

The south was never going to get their hands on Kitty. And if Ella was determined to make them pay then he would be by her side to settle the debt. Joffrey would never get close to them, her grandfather would never get close to them. They were his family, they belonged to him, they were his.

 

“All yours,” Ella said with a small smile.

 

It took him longer than he’d care to admit to realise that she meant the bathroom.

 

***

 

“Auntie Ella I’m thirsty,” Kitty said as she climbed into bed.

 

Ella looked in her handbag to see if she’d brought her water bottle in from the car but she hadn’t.

 

“Just one minute, Kitten,” she promised.

 

She’d heard the shower turn off a few minutes prior so she grabbed one of the cups off of the desk and knocked on the door.

 

“Robb? Kitty just wants some water, is it alright if I come in?,” she asked.

 

“Yep,” she heard him say so she opened the door.

 

Robb was towelling off his hair, wearing a pair of sweatpants. Only a pair of sweatpants.

 

His chest still had droplets of water on it as did his abs, his very well defined abs. His biceps were flexed as he had them raised above his head.

 

_I should have brought a second glass._

 

“I…,” she started.

 

“It’s a bit hot,” he told her.

 

“Hot?,” she gulped.

 

“Yeah I was just using warm water, you might want to run the cold for a minute…,” he told her, his brow furrowing quizzically.

 

She nodded as though that made a lot of sense and stepped inside. She turned on the water and as he’d said it was hot so she placed the cup down on the counter and waited.

 

She’d always known he was gorgeous. She’d remembered him from Sansa’s wedding all those years ago and it was an undeniable fact. But when she’d come here she’d been so focused on Kitty, as had he, and they’d been so scared about Sansa and he’d had Roslin that she’d never really _thought_ about it. Not until recently anyway. And now she couldn’t stop.

 

She chanced a glance at him in the mirror and found him already looking at her. Or rather, it seemed, her ass. She glanced away quickly.

 

“Should be good,” he told her.

 

“Hmm?,” she asked absentmindedly.

 

“The water,” he clarified.

 

“Oh! Yes, right,” she nodded, picking up the glass to fill it but dropping it in the sink instead.

 

“Are you alright?,” he asked, closing the short distance between them and picking up the glass.

 

He was boxing her in, his chest close to but not touching her back. She nodded.

 

“Look at me,” he demanded softly.

 

She lifted her head and let her eyes meet his. She had always been told that wildfire was green, that it was the only flame more dangerous than the blue. Looking in his eyes now she realised what a terrible thing it must be to behold, for the blue flames of his eyes seemed more than sufficient to consume her whole.

 

She opened her mouth to speak but she had no idea what she was going to say.

 

It was just as well because Kitty called softly, “Auntie Ella?”

 

“Coming,” she called back, filling the cup and heading back to her.

 

The little girl took a few sips and then handed the glass back to her. She took a sip as well and put it on the night stand before lifting up the comforter so that Kitty could slide underneath. She got in beside her and Grey Wind hopped up on the foot of the bed.

 

“Where are we going?,” Kitty asked.

 

“I don’t know, Kitten, but Uncle Robb is taking us somewhere safe,” she promised.

 

Kitty didn’t say anything to that, which meant that she believed her. She, who had been so wary of Robb when they first met, now trusted in him completely. Ella hadn’t been lying earlier, he could have taken her on his own, he was so much better at this than he thought.

 

 _Thank the gods he did not let me_ , she thought selfishly as Kitty burrowed into her arms.

 

She stroked her niece’s soft curls and closed her eyes, willing sleep to come for them both.

 

“Will you sing the dream song?,” Kitty yawned.

 

Robb came out of the bathroom wearing a t shirt now with his sweatpants and climbed in on Kitty’s other side. He nodded at her before turning out the light.

 

_“I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream, I know you, that look in your eyes is so familiar a gleam, And I know it's true that visions are seldom all they seem, But if I know you, I know what you'll do, You’ll love me at once, the way you did once upon a dream”_

 

Kitty’s breath had steadied before she got to the next verse so she stopped singing and settled into the pillows.

 

She had been exhausted, but sleep would not come. Perhaps it was because she knew that Robb lay there too, awake.

 

“Are you still angry with me?,” she asked softly.

 

“Yes,” he answered.

 

“I didn’t want to leave her,” she promised.

 

“And what about me?,” he asked, sliding closer to her and cupping her cheek in his large hand. It was pitch black but she could somehow still see the hurt in his eyes. “Would you have ever forgiven me if I left the two of you?”

 

“That’s different,” she protested.

 

“How?,” he demanded.

 

“Because we need you,” she whispered, holding his wrist.

 

“Then it is exactly the same.”


	8. Chapter 8

The landscape had turned brutal an hour before. Ice had replaced snow and though the howling of the wind was fierce the branches of the trees were frozen still.

 

“Auntie Ella, I’m hungry,” Kitty said from the backseat.

 

“Here, my love,” Ella, always prepared, said, reaching into her bag, “Do you want a banana or crackers?”

 

“Cookies,” Kitty requested instead.

 

Robb chuckled and he could feel Ella glaring at him.

 

“You haven’t had dinner yet, Kitten,” Ella noted.

 

“Crackers,” Kitty grumbled and he bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing again.

 

He pulled off of the highway and took the back country roads for another few miles until he saw the large oak gate. He pulled up to it and rolled down his window.

 

“State your name and purpose,” a gruff guard demanded.

 

“I’m Robb Stark, I’m here to see Commander Snow he’s -“

 

“Of course, drive right on through Mr. Stark, Commander Snow can be found in the tilt at this time of day, just at the end of this drive.”

 

He thanked the man and rolled up his window. The cold was unlike anything he’d felt in years. Kitty would need her hat and gloves in order to brave it.

 

“You weren’t kidding,” Ella said as they made their way down the long drive. He glanced at her and she said, “You really have brought us to the safest place in the north.”

 

“How did -“

 

“Castle Black is famous, even in the south,” she told him and smiled sadly, “As is Jon Snow.”

 

She was right, of course, though how she had put it all together was just another one of her beguiling traits.

 

This had always been his plan. Jon had always been his plan. They were brothers, having known one another as children, even fighting together in the war in Yunkai. Afterwards, Robb had returned home and Jon had stayed on with the military, and as Robb had turned his family’s successful company into an empire, Jon had risen quickly through the ranks to become the youngest Commander of the Night’s Watch, an elite military group, in its history.

 

He had always known this is where he’d take Kitty when things went wrong.

 

He parked at the end in a space at the end of the drive. The tilt was hard to miss, it was essentially a large arena under stadium lights. Though it was only four o’clock it was pitch black.

 

“Would you like us to wait here?,” Ella asked.

 

“No,” he shook his head and then turned around to look at Kitty, “Alright honey we’re going to get you bundled up.”

 

Ella pulled on her parka and pulled out her gloves and got out of the car. He did the same and he let Grey Wind out as Ella pulled on Kitty’s hat and mittens and her puffy coat.

 

“ _Brrrr,”_ he heard Ella saying to Kitty as he followed Grey Wind around to them.

 

He was on high alert, it seemed, and locked himself to Ella’s side. His first priority, like theirs, was Kitty, but Ella was a very close second.

 

“Ready?,” he asked them.

 

Two identical pairs of green eyes looked at him and nodded silently. They all started walking towards the tiltyard, Kitty holding onto Ella’s hand as he held Grey Wind’s leash.

 

There were two men fighting as a group of others watched. He knew Jon in a moment, though his back was to him and his hair was longer. It was in the way he fought, it was like a dance. It always had been. His opponent was pinned in an instant.

 

The other guys guffawed and clapped as Jon helped the other man up, but a few stopped and peered at them approaching.

 

Jon turned and grinned beckoning them forward and Robb lead them into the tiltyard. They closed the distance between them and embraced heartily. It had been years since he’d last seen him.

 

“It’s good to see you, Stark,” he said, tapping his face lightly.

 

“And you,” he nodded.

 

Jon pulled away from him and looked at Kitty briefly before his eyes fell to Ella. His smile died in an instant.

 

“Seven hells, Stark. What have you done?”

 

***

 

“This is Ella,” Robb told Jon, as though he hadn’t just asked that, “And Kitty.”

 

“ _Ella_ ,” Jon practically spat, “This is _Myrcella fucking Baratheon_ , the princess of the south - the Lannister’s only daughter.”

 

She straightened her posture and jutted out her chin as the other men crowded around. They had been previously a cause of curiosity, but now the other men were looking at them like a threat.

 

Grey Wind stepped in front of them and stood directly blocking Kitty, all but growling at Jon.

 

“Jon, _language please_ ,” Robb tried to diffuse the situation, “Not in front of my daughter.”

 

It struck her as odd that he would bring them here if he were not willing to tell the truth about Kitty’s parentage, but looking around she figured that had more to do with the men amassed than it did with Jon. Though, given Jon’s reaction, perhaps Robb was thinking better of his plan.

 

“ _Daughter?_ ,” Jon asked.

 

His gaze fell to Kitty, or rather, where Kitty had been. She was still holding Ella’s hand but had hidden behind Robb’s leg, holding onto it with her other arm.

 

In spite of everything, she saw the look on Robb’s face when he felt her little arm wrap around him, probably remembering, like she was, the first day they’d met when Kitty had hidden behind her in his presence.

 

His hand came down and stroked her head, just like hers had that day, and Ella stepped closer to them both.

 

“Yes,” Robb lied in a steady voice. “They came to seek sanctuary in the north given everything happening in the south.”

 

“Things happening because of _her_ family,” Jon rightly pointed out.

 

“She is innocent,” Robb lied, yet again, whether he knew it or not. Ella was far from innocent, of that she was sure. “As is my daughter.”

 

Robb picked Kitty up then and held her close. Ella could tell she was shaking and she placed a hand on her back to steady her.

 

Kitty turned to look at her and Jon stepped back a half step, his eyes nearly black. In truth, he looked as though he’d seen a ghost.

 

“How old are you, sweetheart?,” he asked in an entirely different voice.

 

“Three and three quarters,” their brave niece said in spite of her fear. Perhaps because of it.

 

“You look just like your mother,” Jon said, his voice thick with emotion. “Just like Sansa.”

 

“Jon -,” Robb started but Jon waved him off.

 

“Whatever you need,” Jon told him. “Whatever you need to defend her is yours,” he focused his attention back on Kitty and said, “You’re safe here, sweetheart. I promise.”

 

Ella did not miss that he made no promises of safety to her. She didn’t care though, she expected none. In fact, she respected him more for not making them. It made her believe that he told it true to Kitty, and that’s all that mattered.

 

Apparently, it was not all that mattered to Robb though.

 

“I need your assurance that Ella will be safe here too, or we will need to move on,” Robb told him.

 

_You fool. You loyal fool._

 

Jon’s gaze fell once again to her and she met it, watching his eyes roam over her face. She knew that he was taking in the green Lannister eyes and the gold Lannister hair. She knew that he saw treachery in her very countenance.

 

In the end, it was Kitty that saved her.

 

“Auntie Ella?,” she asked fearfully, reaching for her.

 

The little girl practically jumped into her arms and Ella held her close. She was shaking still and Ella pressed kisses to her temple, cooing at her nonsensically until the tremors stopped. She saw Jon looking at the pair of them curiously, at the way Kitty burrowed into her.

 

“It’s alright, my love,” she promised, “These nice men aren’t going to hurt me.”

 

“Of course we aren’t,” Jon agreed, “We don’t hurt little girls in the north.” _Everywhere in this world they hurt little girls._ “Welcome to Castle Black, _Ella_. The hospitality of the Night’s Watch is yours for as long as you remain here.”

 

It was clever that. He was not just a skilled warrior, he was a politician even if he didn’t know it. Her grandfather and brother were fools not to fear him.

 

“Thank you, Commander Snow. Your reputation does not do you enough credit.”

 

***

 

“Alright, now it’s just you and me, what in seven hells is going on?,” Jon asked.

 

They were in an apartment that Jon had arranged for them. It was plain but had three bedrooms and was safe within the walls of Castle Black, which was all that mattered.

 

“I got a call a couple of months ago from Sansa. She was afraid, she knew she and Kitty had to get out. I offered to go down there to get them -“

 

“You would have been thrown in prison, Robb!,” Jon bellowed at him, standing up from the kitchen table in anger. “Another Stark in their grasp - they never would have let you go.”

 

“I know, Sansa knew. So she said they’d make the journey north on their own. It didn’t feel right, I _knew_ it didn’t, but I agreed…and when I went to pick them up at the border, it was Ella there with her hair dyed auburn and forged travel documents claiming her as Sansa Stark.”

 

“Where’s Sansa now?,” Jon asked.

 

“We don’t know,” Robb sighed, rubbing his eyes. “We haven’t heard anything from her. The last we heard there was a woman named Alayne Stone who’d arrived in the Vale. That’s one of the aliases she and Ella had discussed at one point, but we’ve heard nothing since.”

 

“The Vale?,” Jon asked. Robb nodded and Jon took out his cell phone. He held it to his ear and after a moment said, “Edd - the Vale, whose our contact with the re cell there?… Get word to them to be on the lookout for an Alayne Stone… Ally. Northern. Immediate removal.”

 

Jon clicked off and set his phone down.

 

“Re cell?,” Robb wondered.

 

“Resistance cell,” Jon clarified. “There are factions growing in the south who are prepared to take down your girlfriend’s family through whatever means necessary. We’ve heard of a girl in the Vale leading one of them, they call her the Little Dove.”

 

“Why?,” Robb wondered.

 

“Because she’s bound to be shot down,” Jon lamented. Robb felt his heart constricting and they sat in silence for a moment, both thinking of Sansa, the girl they both loved more than their own lives. The girl they’d both failed. “So what made you run?”

 

“Varys came to my house,” Robb said, knowing that Jon would need no further explanation than that.

 

“Good,” Jon nodded.

 

“Why is _that_ good?,” Robb challenged.

 

“Because it means they don’t have her,” Jon noted grimly.

 

Robb hadn’t even thought about that. His only thought had been getting Kitty and Ella north, getting them safe. He hadn’t even stopped to consider what Varys’ visit really meant.

 

“She isn’t, by the way,” Robb said though, because he wasn’t sure what else to say. Jon raised his eyebrows at him and he clarified, “My girlfriend.”

 

Jon chuckled at him and placed his glass in the sink.

 

“This is the safest place in the north, and you threatened to leave it because of her,” Jon pointed out. “Look, as Commander of the Night’s Watch, I’d be sending her back to King’s Landing on a flight tonight, but as your friend… I’ll just warn you not to get taken in by a pair of green eyes. However pretty they may be.”

 

“She’s not just a pair of eyes,” Robb argued.

 

“Maybe not,” Jon conceded, “But she doesn’t belong here.”

 

_She belongs with me._

 

“It’s late,” Robb said, though it was only eight o’clock, “Can we regroup in the morning?”

 

Jon nodded and headed towards the door. Robb followed him so that he could lock up behind him.

 

“Hey Stark?,” Jon asked as he opened the door. “It’s good to see you.”

 

“You too, brother,” Robb agreed earnestly.

 

With a final nod, Jon turned on his way and Robb closed the door behind him, locking the three different sets of locks. He trusted Jon at his word, but he wouldn’t risk anything. Castle Black was the safest place in the north, but it housed some of its best killers.

 

He walked through the apartment to the back bedroom. He found the light still on and poked his head in to find Kitty, Ella and Grey Wind in Kitty’s bed. Grey Wind was laying at the foot, and Kitty was sprawled out on Ella as her aunt read her a story.

 

“Is he still here?,” Kitty asked.

 

“No, he left,” he told her.

 

She patted the space on the bed next to them and he crossed the bedroom and sat on the bed, leaning back against the pillows.

 

“Ah _Duncan_ ,” he said, referencing the book he’d bought her that had quickly become her favorite.

 

“It’s the yellow crayon!,” Kitty said excitedly.

 

“ _Ahem_ I believe you mean _the true color of the sun_ ,” Ella corrected haughtily making him grin.

 

Kitty giggled and shifted so that her head rested on his chest, her legs still spayed across Ella. Ella continued reading as Kitty played with his beard, which for some reason seemed to fascinate her. Ella had different voices for all of the different crayons, her one of the very embarrassed beige crayon being his and Kitty’s favorite and by the time she finished his heart rate had returned to normal.

 

“Alright, Kitten, time for bed,” Ella said.

 

He lifted Kitty up so that he and Ella could both get out of bed, and Ella pulled back Kitty’s comforter. He placed her down but she held onto him.

 

“Uncle Robb?”

 

“Yeah honey?”

 

“You won’t let anyone hurt Auntie Ella, will you?”

 

“Never.”

 

“Okay. Goodnight. I love you,” she said, as though it was nothing.

 

It was the first time she’d ever said it to him and he felt like his heart was going to burst out of his chest. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and stood up.

 

“Sleep tight, my love,” Ella said softly.

 

They each pat Grey Wind and then turned out her light and shut the door.

 

They walked in silence down the hall to the bedroom where he’d placed Ella’s things. It faced north, though it was hard to believe that there was anything further north than here, and overlooked a frozen pond that was said to thaw for only one week in July.

 

“I don’t want you to worry about Jon, he’ll come around,” he promised her.

 

“I’m not,” she said casually. So casually that he almost believed her.

 

“You know you don’t have to be brave all the time,” he told her softly, “I won’t think any less of you.”

 

He looked down at her, at her warm golden hair and slender form. She wore a white fuzzy sweater and a pair of pink sweatpants and he had no doubt she had a fiercer spirit than any in the Night’s Watch. He admired her, more than just about anyone he’d ever known.

 

Even still, he had learned from his father when he was very young that bravery did not require an immunity to fear, but rather a conquering of it. He would help her conquer any fear, if she’d let him.

 

He wasn’t sure when he’d stopped thinking of her as Kitty’s aunt, and started thinking of her as her own brilliant self. It must have been one of the nights after Kitty had long been asleep when they stayed up talking about what a world could be under just governments, or far simpler things like a movie they’d both seen half a dozen times. Whenever it was, whatever had caused it, he no longer valued her simply for what she was to Kitty, though that was a part of herself so captivating and so inextricable from the rest of her that it never fully faded, he now valued her for herself, her charming, intelligent, kind self that shone so brightly even in the darkest parts of the world such as this.

 

And once he’d begun to think of her as herself, it only stood to reason that he would begin to want her. That he would begin to want her more than he’d ever wanted any woman. That her beguiling combination of strength and compassion, her ability to play like a child with their niece and spout words of wisdom like an ancient seer, and yes, her green eyes, that only a blind man would deem merely pretty, would all ensnare him so calmly, so unintentionally, that he didn’t even notice it until he was well and truly damned.

 

“I know that,” she told him, looking up at him with those green eyes. There was a flash of accusation in them, “It was foolish, what you did today. Saying that we’d leave if Jon would not promise my protection.”

 

“Then I’m a fool,” he told her simply, “Because I would do it again tomorrow.”

 

“You are a fool,” she agreed with a sigh, “A great northern fool.”

 

And then she took his hand and lead him inside of her bedroom.


	9. Chapter 9

She wasn’t entirely sure what to do when she pulled him into her bedroom. Thankfully though, Robb was.

 

He closed the door gently behind them, still holding her hand and brought her over to her bed. He sat down on it, so they were eye to eye and pulled her close to him.

 

She was thankful that he told her she didn’t always need to be brave, because she didn’t feel brave now. She felt like a shy, trembling girl, standing in front of the boy who’d grown in such a short time to matter more to her than any boy ever had.

 

He let his knuckles trail down her cheek lightly, as though she were made of glass, and his bright blue eyes were tinged in red at the edges as he looked at her like she might not be wholly real.

 

The air between them was thick with promise, they both knew they stood on the precipice of something great and terrifying - and inevitable.

 

Neither of them rushed, though, and she took the time to examine him fully. His eyes, the hollows of his cheeks, the strength of his jaw which she could not help but trace with her fingertips.

 

When her gaze fell to his lips he leaned forward, as though he had been waiting very patiently for her to get there, and pressed them to hers.

 

It was soft and tentative, perhaps he thought she’d change her mind. She had no intention of doing so though, and let the simple pleasure of being kissed take over.

 

He grew bolder, wrapping her fully in his arms until she was flush against his chest, but no more insistent, making no moves to take off her clothes or bring her onto the bed.

 

His tongue against hers made her bolder too and she loosened her grip on his shoulders, moving them down his strong back to the hem of his sweater and pulling it up. He helped her tug it off of him and then he was bare chested, like he had been the night before when she thought she might faint from the sight of him.

 

She pressed a kiss to his collarbone and then another and he let out a sigh that sounded almost like he was in pain. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and continued her trail up his neck. He smelled like the hotel’s soap and ice and him.

 

His hands wandered up the back of her sweater, his thumbs trailing the divets of her ribs softly.

 

“I won’t break,” she promised him.

 

“I know,” he said with a sheepish grin, “But I got a taste of what losing you might feel like, and now I’d like to take my time learning what having you does.”

 

She knew that the smile she gave him was shy and flirtatious and even a little bit lovesick but she didn’t care, because his was just the same. Their lips met still smiling, but they turned more urgent and needy.

 

His knuckles guided her sweater up her body and she pulled it over her head, letting it fall to the floor on top of his. She wore only her light pink bralet and his fingers pulled the straps down, his lips pressing to the bones of her shoulder. She understood his sigh now, it was a strange dichotomy of pain and pleasure, to lose his lips against hers only to gain them elsewhere.

 

“ _Robb_ ,” she sighed.

 

He wrapped an arm around her and picked her up, laying her on the bed as he pulled down her sweatpants with his other hand in one fluid motion.

 

She wondered briefly if he’d forgotten his wish of taking his time, but since she had no desire for him to slow down she said nothing. He unbuckled his belt and undid his jeans, pulling them down until he was just in his boxer briefs. She could see him, hard and impressive, and a whimper escaped her lips.

 

She moved herself up the bed, so that her head rested against the pillows and he followed after her, easing between her legs. His muscles were hard but his skin was smooth underneath her fingertips.

 

He pressed kisses to her cheek and up to her temple as he pulled down her underwear. His followed close behind.

 

There was no further preamble, no foreplay. It felt, to her at least, that the past month had been leading up to this exact moment. Every evening that they parted with wishes of well slept nights and every morning since the first time he pressed a kiss to the back of her head just as he did to the back of Kitty’s on his way out the door. Every Saturday evening when she’d meet them for dinner and his eyes would widen at the dress she’d chosen for the occasion and every Sunday when they’d pile into her bed to watch a movie. The first time she’d straightened his tie on a morning when she knew he had a big meeting and the Friday he came home with two bouquets of winter roses, because they were _nearly as beautiful as the two of you._

 

So when he entered her it didn’t feel abrupt, or rushed. It felt right, and long overdue.

 

Their sighs and cries of pleasure filled the little room overlooking the frozen pond. His thrusts were long and slow and hit her with such an aching perfection that she peaked before he’d even broken a sweat.

 

He looked down at her with a small smile on his face that was full of reverence and happiness and was even a bit smug. She was far too satisfied to reprimand him for his pride and so she accepted his kiss once again.

 

His hands found hers and he lifted them above her head, interlacing his fingers with hers. His movements quickened and his breath became more laboured. The sight of his pleasure intensified her own and soon she was matching him thrust for thrust, their gasps and sighs perfectly in sync.

 

She squeezed his hands harder, needing purchase, counting on him to anchor her the way he was so adept at. He squeezed them back as though he was just as desperate for grounding.

 

She felt him shudder and she fell over the edge again, her lips against his ear as he burrowed into her neck. He released her hands but made no further move away from her, and she stroked her hand through his curls, cradling him in her arms and legs.

 

He began pressing feather light kisses to her neck that made her giggle, and he didn’t stop, his lips wandering up to her face until he was kissing her cheeks and her chin and her temple and her nose and her eyelids, until she was begging him. She wasn’t entirely sure if she was begging him to stop or to kiss her lips but he chose the latter.

 

It was a deep, lingering kiss, that told her he knew exactly what this meant, and that he wasn’t sorry.

 

He pulled away and looked over her face, a small smile on his.

 

“Have I ever told you that you’ve got the loveliest eyes I’ve ever seen?,” he asked.

 

“Kind of…,” she allowed, and couldn’t help but add, “In front of your girlfriend no less. I thought you were an idiot.”

 

He chuckled, cupping her face in his hand, “An idiot is it? So is that all I am to you? A northern fool after all.”

 

“Yes,” she agreed, leaning her cheek against his palm so that he wouldn’t think of moving it. It was large and warm and comforting. “A great, northern fool, with loyalty in his bones and honour in his heart.”

 

“You either overestimate me, or underestimate yourself,” he confessed, “It is not honour that resides in my heart.”

 

He was far braver than she was, she was sure of that. She could never have confessed such a thing so freely. He had nothing to fear though, she supposed, because every action of his had been screaming his devotion far more than any proclamation ever could. He had laid everything on the line, when it counted the most, and so there was no reason to hide.

 

She leaned up and kissed him, hoping that her actions would speak the truths she could not. He kissed her back like it was enough, but their bodies joined once again as thought it never would be.

 

Afterwards she lay on her stomach, lazy with satisfaction, her cheek resting against the pillow as Robb lay on his side, his large hand stroking her hair.

 

“The first night we slept in the same bed,” he told her, “You fell asleep just like this while Kitty and I watched _Sleeping Beauty_. She made me look at you and asked _Auntie Ella is Sleeping Beauty, isn’t she?_ ”

 

“I hope you told her no,” Ella yawned.

 

“And why would I do that?,” he challenged, “You were asleep, and I don’t think your beauty is a subject of much dispute.”

 

She opened her eyes and looked at him, stroking his cheek to temper the blow, “Because I’m not a princess in a tower, waiting for a prince to come rescue me. I don’t need anyone slaying my dragons for me.”

 

“No, you certainly do not,” he agreed, “But that does not mean you have to fight them on your own either.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I considered making this really fiery, but I wanted some softness for these two! Hope you enjoyed it.


	10. Chapter 10

Jon gave them a tour of Castle Black the next day. It was expansive, they had to take his car to see it all. He and Jon sat in the front while Ella sat in the back in between Kitty in her car seat and Grey Wind.

 

His dog had made such a fuss when they went to leave him this morning that Kitty had begged him to take him along and he hadn’t had the heart to deny either of them. Grey Wind didn’t seem to trust Jon. It was odd, at first, considering that Jon had known him as a puppy, but became easier to understand when the dog locked himself to Ella’s side rather than Kitty’s when Jon approached.

 

Ella hardly spoke to him all day, focusing all of her attention on Kitty. She was not shying away from Jon out of fear, he knew, but out of respect. It seemed that she was far more understanding of Jon’s disdain for her than he or Kitty.

 

Jon walked them into a large complex. It looked almost like a school, even more so when they saw groups of men sitting at desks behind the doors being lectured to.

 

“There’s a constant rotation of courses,” Jon told them as they walked, “They used to just be in things like military strategy and survival basics - you know, a rotation on how to survive in the desert and then one in the mountains - but we’ve changed it in the past few years to incorporate history and current events and politics, customs of different countries, that sort of thing.” Ella smiled briefly but Jon caught it. “Something funny?”

 

“Not at all,” she shook her head, “I met one of your men in Dorne a few years back. He was very good.”

 

“Not good enough, if you knew he was one of mine,” Jon said self-deprecatingly.

 

“My fiancé, my _former_ fiancé, introduced him to me properly, otherwise I would have never known,” Ella explained.

 

“Trystane Martell,” Jon nodded, “A good man imprisoned by your family… Not the only one.”

 

If he had thought to goad her, he failed, because Ella’s gaze never wavered when she said, “Far from the only one. An ally of the North’s though, from long before I knew him.”

 

“You almost turned him though, didn’t you?,” Jon accused casually.

 

“Until he realised I had no desire to do so,” Ella countered. It was like watching a tennis match, the two of them. Neither missed a beat. “ _That_ was why he introduced your man to me. Because he knew that I was an ally, even if my family was the enemy.”

 

“And now he rots behind bars,” Jon grimaced, “Some ally you are.”

 

“With respect, Commander Snow, I’m not the one with a team of elite military operatives at my disposal,” Ella pointed out.

 

She had turned as white as a sheet but she held her head high. Jon said nothing to that and kept walking.

 

And so Ella one the game.

 

*

 

Jon took them to the cafeteria for lunch. Robb got Kitty settled in with a turkey sandwich and some juice while Ella went to the ladies room.

 

“You could go a bit easier on her,” Robb warned Jon mildly.

 

“She doesn’t need you fighting her battles,” Jon smirked, “Or want you to for that matter.”

 

He knew that, was _everyone_ going to tell him that? Still it felt wrong standing there while she was being attacked and not saying anything, but he knew she’d be angry with him if he did.

 

More men came to join their table, and he noticed that Kitty moved closer and closer to him as each one did. He had not cured her of her wariness of men, he was only an exception from it. He pulled her into his lap and moved her tray closer to her.

 

She settled against him and lifted a baby carrot up to his lips. He munched on it with a growl and she let out her adorable giggle.

 

He saw more than a few of the men soften at the sound of it. He wondered if they could remember the last time they’d heard a sound so innocent, if they were understanding all over again exactly what it was that they were protecting.

 

None more so than Jon, who could not seem to take his eyes off of her.

 

“Do you want one?,” she offered politely, holding out a carrot to him.

 

Even though she did not trust him yet, she was Sansa’s daughter and Ella’s niece. Courtesy was in her bones.

 

“No sweetheart,” Jon shook his head, “You eat them, so you can grow up nice and strong.”

 

“Like Auntie Ella?,” Kitty, as clever as her aunt, asked him.

 

“Yeah honey,” Robb agreed because he knew Jon would not, “Just like Auntie Ella.”

 

He wanted to add _And your Mommy_ , but Kitty had been wanting to speak of Sansa less and less in recent weeks.

 

As though they’d conjured her though, Ella came and sat on the bench next them, plopping her own tray down.

 

“Look Kitten, I found some hummus,” she said, placing the small bowl of it in front of their niece.

 

Kitty immediately dipped a carrot into it and started munching on it. Ella turned to watch her, as though she might choke on it - she was on high alert here it seemed - and he rubbed her back. She didn’t look up at him, but a blush rose on her cheeks and he fought the urge to kiss one of them.

 

It was hard not to touch her the way that he wanted to, now that he knew what she felt like. It was as though a dam had been broken.

 

“So Princess,” one of the men started, “What’s your family’s master plan?”

 

He felt her back go rigid and he turned to the man to say something. It was one thing to stomach it from Jon but he wasn’t going to tolerate it from a random soldier.

 

“First of all, my name is Ella, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said graciously though, “And second of all, I’d say they’ve made it perfectly clear what _their_ master plan is. I’m more interested in yours.”

 

“I’ll just bet you are, Princess,” another one said.

 

Ella laughed wind chimes, “You think I’m a spy?”

 

“I’m a spy!,” Kitty said and all eyes turned to her.

 

It was Jon who chuckled first but the other men followed suit and Robb kissed the back of his niece’s head. She spied for him all the time. She told him Ella’s favourite kind of ice cream and her favourite colour.

 

“You can understand our hesitation in trusting you, princess,” another one of them said, in what Robb believed as an attempt to be kind.

 

“I can,” Ella nodded, “As I hope you all understand that the next man who calls me princess is going to regret it.”

 

Just then another man, who had been previously sitting with them and had gotten up to get utensils returned. He was holding a fork in one hand and a knife in the other, and he was so large and imposing that he seemed to be holding them as weapons. Kitty shrunk back against him and Robb wrapped his arm around her, his chin resting on her head.

 

The giant redheaded man exclaimed with a jovial guffaw, “ _Ah_ the princess is real after all!”

 

All eyes turned back to Ella as she rose slowly but purposefully from the table.

 

“Ella,” Robb started, about to stand up and get in front of her.

 

“It’s fine, Robb,” she told him placidly, “I’m just going to introduce myself properly.”

 

She walked over to the man and Robb’s eyes never left her. For some reason, Kitty had grown less tense, and she leaned forward, as though she knew something the rest of them didn’t.

 

The other men’s eyes had followed Ella too, not just the ones at their table, and he knew it was not mere curiosity. There were not many women at Castle Black, and Ella was a stunning one.

 

She walked over to the beast of the man and before any of them knew what was happening she elbowed one of his forearms, causing him to release the knife that he held in that hand. She caught it and then kicked him in the back of his knees. As he fell onto them she got behind him and pulled his hair back, the knife at his throat.

 

“The name’s Ella Baratheon, handsome. Remember it, or I might be forced to pluck those pretty eyes of yours right out,” she said sweetly.

 

It was Kitty who clapped first, shouting, “Again! Again!”

 

To Robb’s surprise it was the man whose neck Ella still held the knife to that clapped next. He let out a roar of laughter and pulled her hand to his lips and kissed it.

 

“The name’s Tormund Giantsbane, and I’m your man until the day I die, princess. Even if it’s at your hand.”

 

Ella giggled and pulled the knife away from him, allowing him to stand up. When the rest of the men started clapping she did a reluctant, but elegant, curtsey and Robb found himself hooting and hollering with the rest of them.

 

She came back and took her seat next to them, picking up her apple and taking a bite as though nothing had happened.

 

“When you talked about slaying your dragons, you weren’t speaking metaphorically, were you?,” he asked her softly so that no one else would hear.

 

“No,” she shook her head, “I wasn’t.”

 

Her green eyes looked at him as though he might change his mind about her. As though he’d think any less of her for being willing to swing the sword herself.

 

Perhaps the men she’d known in the south would have. They’d have wanted her as she appeared to be on the surface, poised and beautiful, an elegant guest on their arm.

 

 _You don’t know me very well_ , she had told him some weeks ago when he’d told her there was nothing she could do for the unfortunates of her country.

 

He realised now that she’d said it like a warning, but she needn’t have.

 

“Where’d you learn that move?,” Jon asked her curiously.

 

Ella smiled at Jon sadly, and pressed a kiss to Kitty’s temple before answering him, “Sansa.”

 

Jon swallowed hard and nodded, his eyes crinkling in the way that had always been a substitute for his smiles.

 

And so Ella won the set as well.

 

***

 

“Alright, so what you want to do,” Tormund told Kitty, “Is take the man’s ear between your teeth, and _pull, pull, pull_.”

 

She would have to tell Tormund later that this was not the sort of lesson she really wanted her niece learning, but given that he was the first man apart from Robb that she had warmed to, she didn’t want to interrupt now. She’d also feel a little hypocritical, given the demonstration she’d done in front of Kitty earlier - though Kitty had always accompanied her and Sansa on their training.

 

The three year old was standing on Tormund’s legs now and he brought her little thumbs to his eyes.

 

Robb walked in from the kitchen and asked her, “What’s he doing?”

 

“I think he’s teaching her to gouge a man’s eyes out,” Ella told him, “But his technique needs work.”

 

“You terrify me, Baratheon,” he said in her ear in a low voice, “And there must be something wrong with me because I find it _incredibly_ sexy.”

 

She giggled and shoved him away. Robb ran over and plucked Kitty off of Tormund, tossing her in the air and Ella went into the kitchen, where she found Jon doing the dishes.

 

“You don’t need to do that,” Ella told him, “I’ll do it when you guys leave.”

 

“Now you won’t have to,” Jon told her with a shrug.

 

She surveyed him. His back was tense. She knew she made him uncomfortable.

 

She remembered back to the first night with Robb. He was wary of her as well, though not outwardly hostile. She remembered the first real conversation they had.

 

“I’ll dry,” she offered.

 

She went and stood beside him and he handed her a bowl. She dried it with a dishtowel and put it back in the cupboard and took the next one from him.

 

They worked in silence for a few minutes and it wasn’t until she noted that his shoulders relaxed that she said anything. With someone else she might ease into it, but he did not seem like the sort who cared for being eased into anything.

 

“You’re the one aren’t you?,” she asked him, “The one Sansa told me about?”

 

“There’s no real way of me knowing that, is there?,” he returned gruffly, handing her another bowl.

 

He was well trained. He wouldn’t respond to a leading question.

 

“Sansa told me about a boy she’d known growing up. _A man at the age of seven_. She fell in love with him, the way girls always seem to with their older brother’s best friends. And then he went to war, and he never came back. Even though she begged him to.”

 

He turned the water off and set down the glass he’d been holding.

 

“Why are you asking a question you already know the answer to?,” he demanded.

 

“Because Sansa was never sure if he loved her back,” she told him honestly, “But she’s a smart girl and seeing the way you look at her daughter, like you would burn on the pyre to protect her, I don’t know how she could have missed it.”

 

“Because I forced her to,” he said simply. “I knew I made a mistake, but it was too late. She’d met your brother and moved South and-“

 

“And there’s no reasoning with a girl in love,” Ella said softly, remembering what Robb had told her on the first day they met. Jon’s eyes were wide and black as he nodded, not looking at her. “Do you love her still?”

 

“Yes,” he said gruffly.

 

For all his political agility, this was not a man who was accustomed to lies.

 

“Well so do I,” she told him.

 

She did not expect him to trust her necessarily, but she could not bear for him to doubt that.

 

She turned the faucet back on and he continued washing the glass and handed it to her. They worked for a while in silence once again. He paused while washing a plate and turned off the faucet.

 

“Has he hurt her? Sansa?,” he asked.

 

“Once,” she nodded, “That I know of. He cracked one of her ribs a few months ago.”

 

“And what did you do?,” he challenged, “That fancy move with the knife?”

 

“No,” she shook her head, trying to keep her cool, “I crushed his kneecap with a tire iron.”

 

He chuckled, “Well done.”

 

She felt a white, fiery rage and a swift form of nausea overcome her, “No, Commander Snow, it was not well done.” He glanced at her curiously and she felt that his honesty had earned some of her own, “The next day he had my bodyguard, Arys, the man who had guarded me since I was fifteen years old, thrown in prison. His official statement said that it was Arys who had done it, though in fact he had cautioned me against it. They no longer grant parole in the south. He too rots in a cell. _Some ally_ I am.”

 

“You couldn’t have known,” Jon told her kindly, though it seemed to make him uncomfortable to do so.

 

“I should have known,” she corrected.

 

“And that’s why you won’t let Stark fight your battles,” Jon guessed.

 

“He’s loyal and brave,” she sighed, “Either of those virtues might just get him killed one of these days.”

 

“Not on my watch,” Jon promised.

 

It was he who turned the faucet back on this time, and when he handed her the plate it felt like a gift. He was giving her a moment to collect herself, which she sorely needed. She dreamed of Arys often, and Trystane, but did not allow herself to think of them in her waking hours because of what it did to her.

 

They were two of thousands falsely imprisoned. Trystane was guiltier than most, he’d been part of the resistance since long before any official measures had been taken by her family. The Martells had always hated the Lannisters, most ardently after the Targaryen purge when their favourite daughter, Elia, Trystane’s aunt who was one of the many innocent casualties, along with her children.

 

Their engagement had been meant as a political one, and it was, though not the way her grandfather had intended. She and Trystane were likeminded in their hatred of the totalitarian regime her family was planning, and found themselves fast allies and great friends, though they’d never been lovers.

 

Everyone thought it was her who had broken it off, that was the official story, but it was him. His family had plans for her, it seemed, for both of them.

 

_“Tell me, whatever it is. I’m in. How can you doubt me now?,” she asked him._

 

_“Oh my darling,” Trystane sighed, “Can’t you see that it’s precisely because I don’t doubt you that I have to do this?”_

 

_“You don’t have to do anything, you are choosing to - tell me why!”_

 

_“Because I love you,” he told her simply. “I know you don’t love me in that way and that’s alright. I never asked you to. But I love you all the same.”_

 

It was the last time she ever saw him.

 

“Try to warn Robb off me,” she requested.

 

“It won’t do any good,” he told her, shutting off the faucet and handing her the last dish. “There’s no reasoning with a man in love either.”

 

***

 

“Okay and who is that?,” Tormund asked Kitty.

 

“ _Maleficent_ ,” Kitty explained.

 

“She’s hot,” Tormund grunted.

 

“She is very bundled up,” Kitty agreed, making Tormund guffaw and Robb grin.

 

The friendship that had formed between Ella and Tormund as soon as she held a knife to his throat had coaxed Kitty’s own approval of him. As Robb had always known, Kitty looked to Ella for everything, and her aunt’s obvious ease with the giant of a man had inspired her own.

 

Tormund too, had helped things, with his easy, open manner and the mischievous glint in his eyes. It had been a serious few days and so when Tormund had gone to try to put Kitty’s mittens on it had caused a fit of hysterics and her prompting him to try on her coat as well.

 

 _Another soldier in her army_ , Robb had realised as Tormund’s face lit up when Kitty took his hand so that she could lead him down the hall to show him her new bedroom. Grey Wind had followed them, but in a lazy way, as though he was merely curious.

 

Now, after dinner had been eaten and Tormund sat in an oversized chair as he and Kitty sat on the couch in front of the television, watching Sleeping Beauty for what had to be the seventh time in a month, they were well and truly friends.

 

Ella came in the room with Jon at the part when Aurora started her song.

 

“It’s your song, Auntie Ella,” Kitty prompted her.

 

“Does she sing as well as she fights?,” Tormund asked him.

 

“It’s comparable,” Robb nodded.

 

“Then I’ve got to hear it,” Tormund said hopefully.

 

“Kitten, why don’t you sing? Your voice is the sweetest,” Ella told her.

 

“No you,” Kitty argued, “I’ll sing with you, and Uncle Robb!”

 

“I don’t know the words,” Robb lied.

 

“But we heard you singing it in the shower,” Kitty protested.

 

Jon and Tormund chuckled and Ella covered her mouth to hide her grin. He couldn’t believe he was being sold out by his own niece.

 

“Oh let’s not embarrass him,” Ella said, taking pity on him, “Come dance with me Kitten, we’ll sing it for our new friend Tormund because he’s been so nice to us.”

 

Kitty scrambled off his lap and Ella bent down to pick her up. Ella held her with one hand and took her little hand in the other and began to dance with her, just as the princess in the movie danced on her own. The two of them started to sing, and though it defied reason, Ella may have been right. Kitty’s voice was nearly sweeter than hers, high and clear and perfectly harmonised with her aunt’s.

 

He could hardly take his eyes off of them, it seemed that beauty such as theirs was not meant to exist in the world in which they lived. Their eyes never left one another’s, Ella nodding ever so slightly to encourage Kitty as they wandered over the lyrics.

 

He turned to look at Tormund though and found the grin gone from his face. Reverence had replaced it, as though their beauty might not belong but it was going to be protected all the same. He glanced at Jon and saw him with his jaw clenched, as though in spite of every wish, he felt the same way. He knew then, that it included Ella. He would have no reservations at feeling that way about Kitty.

 

The song ended and Tormund and Jon continued staring at them. Robb clapped though, hooting and hollering and they quickly followed suit.

 

Ella came and sat down on the couch with Kitty still in her arms. She sat cross legged and Kitty sprawled out on top of her.

 

The wind howled outside and though it did nothing but rattle the windows Ella grabbed the blanket off of the back of the couch and settled it over Kitty, tucking it over her feet and wrapping her up like a burrito.

 

“Auntie Ella!,” Kitty giggled, “I’m a caterpillar!”

 

“That’s right,” Ella nodded, cooing in her ear, “You’re my little caterpillar and I’m going to keep you nice and safe so you can turn into a _beaaaauutiful_ butterfly.”

 

She was only speaking to Kitty, but they all heard. He glanced at Jon now and wanted to ask him _Isn’t it obvious that she’s on the right side of things?_

 

“Ella,” Jon said as though he’d heard his question, “When was the last time you formally trained?”

 

“Not since before I left King’s Landing, why?,” she asked.

 

“I’d like to start training you, if you’d let me,” Jon told her.

 

Ella grinned, “That would be great, I’d love it.”

 

“Don’t be too sure of that, princess,” Tormund, who apparently was the only one allowed to call her that, warned her, “This man is even meaner than he looks.”

 

“So am I,” Ella said happily.

 

“Good,” Jon nodded, “We’ll start tomorrow.”

 

And so finally Ella won the match.


	11. Chapter 11

"Ten bucks on the princess," he heard one man say. 

 

"No way, he's got this," another argued. 

 

Ella's training sessions had become a bit of a thing at Castle Black. A few of the brothers had been on an early morning run the first day and had been going by the tilt yard at the exact moment that Ella hit the bull's eye of a target twenty feet away with a throwing knife. 

 

After that, word had gotten out. 

 

Every morning for the past week more and more brothers of the Night's Watch stood in the dark cold and watched as Ella and Jon sparred. 

 

This morning though had drawn the largest crowd. 

 

At dinner the night before, Grenn, a friend of Jon’s, had made the mistake of suggesting that Jon was taking it too easy on Ella, when in fact he could beat her blindfolded. Robb knew for a fact that Jon was not taking it easy on Ella, the bruises on her ribs and arms were proof of that, for one thing, and for another, he'd told him so. 

 

_“Tell me the truth,” he pleaded._

 

_“Look, if she and I were going at each other full tilt, nine times out of ten I would win. Tormund too, and you, but my other guys? It would be a toss up every time who’d come out on top. Though probably more would go in her favour, because every opponent she has is going to underestimate her.”_

 

Ella though had countered Grenn by saying, " _You're probably right, but then again, I could beat you blindfolded."_

 

So that was why he was now standing on the sidelines, Kitty on his shoulders, as he watched the girl he was pretty sure he was in love with, blindfolded and alone as a man twice her size tried to attack her.

 

Grey Wind was at home, he was no longer allowed at Ella’s training sessions after he’d jumped into the tilt and charged Jon one morning when he took a swing at her.

 

Grenn stormed forward and Ella dodged him, effortlessly sticking out her foot and making him trip forward. He didn't fall to the ground but it threw him off and made a number of the men chuckle.

 

She could have pressed the advantage but she didn't. She waited patiently. She looked so tiny in her black yoga pants and zip up, her golden hair up in a perky ponytail. 

 

" _She's the smallest target I've ever fought against," Jon went on, "And she knows exactly how to use that to her advantage. Guys like us are used to fighting the bigger guy - but there's almost no surface area to hit with her.”_

 

Grenn charged forward again, this time head on and Ella did the same. When they were about two feet away from each other she slid forward, her back nearly parallel to the ground and Robb's heart stopped. She must have lost her footing and he was going to trample her. He'd break one of her ribs at least, and probably her nose depending on how he landed. 

 

"NO!," Kitty cried. 

 

There was a collective gasp, they all saw it. Even the men who had been betting against her didn't want to see her lose like this. 

 

Grenn's stride slowed and widened. It was clear in that moment that he wanted to beat her but he didn't want to hurt her. 

 

_“And she's quick,” Jon sighed, shaking his head, a small smile hovering on his lips, “Quicker than you can imagine."_

 

Ella slid right under him, grabbing hold of his leg and using it leverage to right herself as Grenn fell to the ground. He was able to break his fall, so no harm was really done.

 

Except, of course, to his pride. 

 

The applause was thunderous but as Ella took off her blindfold there was no victory on her face. She sprinted over to where he was standing. 

 

"Kitten, did I frighten you?," she asked. 

 

Kitty eased off his shoulders into her waiting arms and wrapped them around her neck. 

 

"I thought you fell," Kitty explained. 

 

"We all did, honey," he told her honestly.

 

"I was faking it," Ella promised her, "I'm so sorry, my love. That must have been scary."

 

"He's so big," Kitty said and Ella nodded, but Kitty was grinning now, "And you _beat_ him."

 

Kitty had a remarkable temerity when it came to watching Ella's sparring sessions. She had a tremendous, well deserved, faith in Ella's abilities and absolutely no qualms about her beating people up.

 

"Do you want to come with me and tell him what a good job he did?," Ella asked her. 

 

Kitty nodded and Ella smiled at him and walked to the center of the tilt with their niece perched on her hip. 

 

"Well fought," Ella said graciously, holding out her hand to Grenn. 

 

He shook it but didn't crack a real smile until Kitty held out her own hand, and a perfect parrot of her aunt said, "Well fought."

 

Grenn shook her little hand and said, "Thanks, little wolf. Maybe tomorrow _you'll_ take me on."

 

Kitty _grred_ at him which caused Robb and a few others to chuckle, as Ella pressed a kiss to her temple. 

 

"Jon I think I'm going to call it for today and take Miss Kitten here for some breakfast," Ella told him. 

 

Jon nodded in understanding. Kitty may be smiling now but she was clinging to Ella, still shaken, and they both knew Ella wasn't going to put her through anymore that morning. 

 

Grenn ran off towards the track, probably planning to work on his agility, and Ella started heading back towards him. 

 

"Oi, Princess!," a man shouted as he hopped into the tilt. 

 

He was one Robb vaguely recognized, though he had never interacted with him. He had never joined their table and had certainly never been to their apartment - not even for the surprise birthday party that Ella and Kitty thrown for him two nights prior. 

 

Ella turned to him and he saw her back straighten. Robb looked over at Jon who too looked tense. 

 

"Let's see how well you do against a real man," the guy challenged.

 

If it had been Tormund or Grenn or Edd who said that, Ella would have countered with _I'd have to find one first._ If she had been on her on in the tilt she would have met him head on but she still had their niece in her arms. 

 

"I'm all done for the day," she told the man, walking back towards where he was standing. 

 

"Aw don't go so fast," the man said, and Robb was already hopping into the tilt when the man reached for Kitty.

 

Ella dodged away from him quickly enough that he didn’t get his hands on their niece, but Kitty let out a cry of fear.

 

“She’s a _child_ ,” Ella spat at him, “Leave us alone.”

 

Others were shouting at him too. Kitty was well loved at Castle Black, so even the men that were still wary of Ella - and they were now few and far between - were raging at the man. If he had thought he’d gain points for harassing a three year old and her beautiful aunt he’d been sorely mistaken.

 

Ella walked steadily away from him, away from the direction that Robb was coming from, towards the closest exit. She was nearly there when Kitty let out another cry and Ella, thinking she was hurt, set her down to check.

 

"Ella!," Robb called in warning, because it wasn’t pain but fear that had caused Kitty to yelp.

 

He was too far away though and even when he broke into a sprint he knew he'd never make it to her. Her eyes met his just as the man grabbed hold of her ponytail and yanked her back so hard that he lifted her off the ground. 

 

" _Kitty run!_ ," Ella called before she'd even fallen onto her back.

 

The man stepped over her and moved to sit down and straddle her, but Robb tackled him from the side. The man put up a fight, like a cornered, rabid animal but it was useless. He was no competition.

 

"If you keep struggling, I promise I _will_ kill you," Robb growled at him, his fist connecting with his jaw causing a satisfying crunch. 

 

He could do it. He knew how to kill a man with his bare hands. He _had_ killed a man with his bare hands, and he hadn't hated him. He had been the enemy, the person in the way of his survival, but he hadn't hated him. This man was different though. This time he _wanted_ to do it. 

 

"Robb!," Jon called him off, but it made no difference. 

 

The man was still struggling so he dug his knee into his ribs and punched him again. He had hurt Ella. He had tried to hurt Kitty, _his little girl_. He punched him again, it was like kneading bread.

 

"Robb," Ella said calmly. 

 

He looked over at her. She had righted herself and was disheveled but seemingly unharmed.

 

He wanted to be sure though so he got off the mongrel and crossed to her, touching his fingers to her cheek and checking the back of her head for signs of bleeding. When he found none he had only one question.

 

“Where’s Kitty?”

 

"I've got her," Jon said, as though he didn't quite believe it himself. 

 

He and Ella turned to find Kitty hiding against Jon's chest and both crossed to them immediately. 

 

"Kitten," Ella said softly, reaching her hand out tentatively to smooth Kitty's hair. 

 

Kitty let out a sob and turned to look at her, " _A-a--re y-y-you h-h-hurt?"_

 

“No, my love,” Ella promised, swiping her thumb across Kitty’s cheek to rid it of tears, “Are you?"

 

Kitty shook her head and let out another heartbreaking sob and hurdled herself into Ella's arms. Ella gripped onto her tightly, closing her eyes and kissing her hair. 

 

Robb wanted nothing more than to wrap the two of them in his arms and promise that they were both safe, and that everything was going to be fine. But that would have to wait. 

 

"Ella why don't you take Kitty back," he suggested. 

 

"Come with us," Ella demanded, opening her eyes. 

 

It was the tears that threatened to fall from them that nearly convinced him rather than her tone. He had never seen her cry before and he knew that she was as shaken as Kitty.

 

He pulled her towards him by the back of her head and pressed a kiss to her forehead. 

 

"I'll be just behind you," he lied. 

 

“Robb you can go, I’ll handle -,” Jon started but Robb cut him off with a look. Jon nodded and said instead, “Tormund let him go.”

 

He and Ella turned to look at where Tormund had the guy in a choke hold. Robb knew he wanted nothing more than to squeeze the life out of him but he was a loyal soldier and shoved the man to the ground.

 

“Come on, my beauties,” he said, in a gentler voice than a man of his size should be capable of, “I’ll take you home.”

 

 _Home_. That word had lost its meaning to Kitty long ago. Home was not meant to be in a military base, it wasn’t even meant to be in his house in the light blue room that she loved so much. She showed no signs of yearning for it though, no discomfort no matter where they took her.

 

Kitty gripped onto Ella tighter.

 

_Or maybe it hasn’t lost it’s meaning, it’s just no longer a place._

 

“Go on,” he urged her. “She needs you.”

 

 _She’s a loyal soldier too_ , he thought as Ella followed Tormund away.

 

***

 

“How’s she doing?,” Tormund asked as she came back into the kitchen.

 

“She tired herself out,” Ella told him, “She’s sleeping.”

 

Kitty had worked herself up into a panic, her fear snowballing until she could hardly breathe. It was usually easy to comfort her, she was not prone to surges of emotion, but today had been the fear she’d had every day on their journey north come to life.

 

They had come close, a few times. Dangerously close. A man following them down the street, another trying to grope her at the bus stop.

 

None had ever managed to separate them though, and that had been the difference to Kitty.

 

_“I…left you.”_

 

_“Oh my love of course you did, I told you to.”_

 

_“But I have to protect you!”_

 

_“No, Kitten. No. It’s my job to protect you. You did exactly the right thing. That’s what you do if someone tries to hurt us. You run.”_

 

_“No! No! I’ll never leave you again! No! You can’t make me - you promised! You promised we’d stay together!”_

 

She had never felt like such a failure. For so many reasons.

 

“You want to lay down too?,” he asked, “I’ll stick around until the wolf gets back.”

 

She knew he was trying to be kind. No, he wasn’t trying to be kind. He _was_ being kind. Even still it only served to make her feel like more of a failure. Someone in need of protection, just like Kitty said.

 

“I need to train harder,” she told him.

 

“You were caught off guard,” he argued, “Holding your little girl, it could have happened to anyone.”

 

_But it happened to me._

 

“It’s not enough,” she shook her head, “To train my _body_. What good is it if I can protect myself in an arena when I’m _prepared_ , when I’m _ready?_ What good is it if I can’t protect _her_?… They do other sorts of training here I’ve heard.”

 

“Ella, you don’t know what you’re asking,” he warned her.

 

“It’s that bad?,” she wondered.

 

She had heard rumours. They had made their way down south. About the psychological training the Night’s Watch went through. And she’d heard them here. There was a man who had cracked during training and left before he’d become an official member.

 

He’d left in a straight jacket.

 

“It’s hell on earth,” he confirmed.

 

Perhaps she didn’t have to go that far. She didn’t want to forget who she was. If some of the rumours were to be believed, once she’d finished the training she’d forget why she’d started it in the first place. _Kitty_. She didn’t want to forget Kitty, or Robb, or Sansa. She didn’t want to forget what she was fighting for.

 

But she needed to be stronger.

 

She had never once longed for her grandfather, but she did now. This was the sort of training that he had once given her. He had taught her to problem solve. To control her mind. But she’d given up that training when she’d realised what he was training her for. If she’d been smart, she would have taken all the lessons he’d had to give.

 

“You survived it though,” she pointed out. She knew he was strong, not just physically but mentally. Even still she wondered, “How?”

 

“Because by the time I went through it, I no longer had anything left that I loved,” he told her. She placed a hand on his and squeezed it gently. He patted her hand and shrugged, “So I had nothing for them to take. There’s a freedom in that, and a strength too. But it’s a hollow strength. Not like yours.”

 

“ _Mine_?,” she scoffed.

 

“A mother’s strength,” he nodded. “There’s nothing like it in this world.”

 

“I’m not a mother,” she reminded him.

 

“You sure about that, princess?”

 

She opened her mouth to respond, but no words came out. It was just as well because the front door unlocked and Robb walked in.

 

They both stood up and she crossed to him, checking him for signs of harm. There wasn’t a scratch on him though, apart from his knuckles.

 

“Robb -“ she started but he cut her off by pulling her to him and kissing her deeply.

 

“I’ll uh, take my leave,” Tormund said with a guffaw.

 

She pulled away and blushed, as Robb said, “Sorry Tormund.”

 

“Never apologise for kissing a beautiful woman,” Tormund chuckled, “I’ll see you kids later.”

 

“Thank you,” Robb said, offering him his hand, “I wouldn’t have trusted them walking away with very many people.”

 

“Neither would I,” Tormund said sweetly, shaking it. She kissed him on the cheek and followed him to the door. He pulled it open and turned to her, “And beauty, if you’re serious about that training… I have an idea. Will you meet me tomorrow?”

 

“Let me know the time and place and I’ll be there,” she promised.

 

He nodded and left and she closed the door and locked it.

 

“Where’s Kitty?,” he asked.

 

“Sleeping, she needed to rest,” she told him.

 

“And you? Are you hurt? Should we go to the infirmary?,” he wondered.

 

“No,” she shook her head, “I’m okay.”

 

“Okay,” he nodded.

 

She looked at him questioningly, she wanted to know what happened but he seemed to have no desire to talk about it. And then he crossed to her and picked her up, pressing a feverish kiss to her lips, and she had no desire to talk at all.

 

***

 

It felt so good to have her in his arms, and while he knew he was holding her too harshly, she said nothing.

 

Her legs were wrapped around his waist and her fingers were in his hair and he was holding her by her butt, his other gripping her shoulder. He walked her back to the bedroom. It was hers, officially, but he’d slept in it every night with her.

 

He closed the door and tackled her onto the bed, not breaking contact for a moment. Not being willing to.

 

He unzipped her zip up and she eased her shoulders off the bed so he could help her out of it. He didn’t want to waste anytime so he dragged up her tank top and sports bra as well.

 

He attacked her left breast, sucking on her rosebud nipple and pulling it with his teeth until she cried out.

 

“Now!,” she demanded. “I need you _right_ now.”

 

She was pulling up his sweater and then he was unbuckling his pants as she was shoving down hers. When they were both naked she pushed him back on the bed and got on top of him.

 

He was hard and ready for her and when he felt her wet heat surrounding him he let out a grunt. He was glad she was on the pill because there was nothing like the feel of her, and when he had her like this there was nothing separating them.

 

She started riding him hard and fast. She needed him as desperately as he needed her it seemed.

 

She was magnificent. Her head was tossed back, her golden hair touching his thighs, her perfect body completely exposed to him.

 

“ _Fuck_ Ella,” he groaned as she rolled her hips, riding him expertly.

 

He grabbed her ass in both hands, squeezing it roughly. She let out a moan and he spanked her.

 

“ _Harder_ ,” she demanded.

 

He spanked her again and she let out a moan. It felt wrong, to treat her like this after what had happened, but she was begging for it and he was more than happy to oblige. He spanked her again and he felt her clench around him.

 

“That’s it, baby, you’re close,” he told her, “You’re so close,” he said, spanking her again, “Come for me.”

 

He spanked her one final time and she let out a cry and came with a shudder. She was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen, and there was nothing quite like seeing her come. Knowing that _he_ was the one who’d made her do it.

 

Because she was his. She belonged to him. And some _fucker_ had tried to hurt her. Had tried to take her away.

 

He rolled them over and started fucking her hard into the bed.

 

“Robb, _oh gods yes! Yes! Yes!_ ,” she cried.

 

She usually wasn’t loud, but there was nothing usual about this. They were both possessed, he was sure of it. _Wolf’s blood_ his father would have called it.

 

“So fucking good baby, your cunt is the sweetest place on earth,” he growled at her.

 

“ _Right there_ ,” she pleaded and he thrust again the same as he had before. He could _feel_ it, her feeling it, and he did it again and again. “ _Oh goddddds_ ,” she cried, rolling her entire body against his.

 

He thrust again and he felt her clench around him, her finger nails were digging into his back as he fucked her through her second orgasm.

 

“One more, baby,” he promised, picking her thigh up and holding onto it for leverage. “I want to feel that perfect cunt tighten around me once more before I come.”

 

He felt her hands on his ass holding onto him possessively and he grunted, fucking her harder. He was hers too, there was no doubt about it. All hers.

 

“ _Robb, Robb, Robb!”_

 

_“Fuuuuuck Ella!”_

 

He collapsed on top of her, both of them panting heavily. She pressed kisses to his shoulder. Soft, lingering, reverent kisses that were such a bitter contrast that they brought tears to his eyes.

 

“I love you,” he told her without warning or explanation.

 

He had been pretty sure until he saw her being yanked back by her golden hair, and then there had been no room for doubt.

 

She leaned her head back against the pillows so she could look at him. He remembered the way Kitty’s eyes had appraised him the first day they’d met, and he saw it again now.

 

“You killed him.”

 

“I didn’t. I would have. I _wanted_ to. But he’s dead all the same.”

 

“Jon?”

 

“He’s the Commander, he gave an order and the man refused it. That’s a capital offence at Castle Black.”

 

“I thought you were going to,” she said softly, “When you were hitting him.”

 

“So did I,” he told her honestly, “But you said my name.”

 

“Kitty,” she explained.

 

“I know, you did the right thing,” he promised.

 

“I shouldn’t have put her down,” she said, her bottom lip trembling. “I should have gotten her _safe_. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

 

He looked at her in horror. He wasn’t even sure how to respond to that. He had known that she wasn’t shaken because of fear for herself but out of fear for Kitty, but the thought that she was to blame was absurd.

 

“He never touched her, Ella,” he reminded her, reminded himself, “You got her away and when you were being attacked your first thought was for her. What did I tell you? You don’t apologise to me, not when you’ve saved her a thousand times already. I’m the one who needs to apologise, I should have gotten there quicker, I-“

 

“You were 300 yards away,” she argued, the pads of her fingers stroking down his cheek, “I should never have put her down, I should have gotten her _safe_ but she cried out and I was so afraid that I’d missed something, that she was _hurt_. I know better than that but -“

 

“But there’s no reasoning with a girl in love,” he told her gently.

 

He would have done the same thing in her position, he knew. No amount of training or knowledge would have stood a chance against the idea that Kitty was hurt.

 

“She clouds my judgment,” she confessed, like it was a great sin to love their niece so greatly. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and rolled back onto the bed, bringing her with him until she was tucked against his chin. After a moment she said softly, almost to herself, “But so do you.”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“Will you help me with something?”

 

“Anything.”

 

“Okay. And Robb?”

 

“Yeah, El?”

 

“I love you too.”


	12. Chapter 12

“Is that better, honey?,” he asked Kitty as he dabbed a cool damp wash cloth against her forehead.

 

“A little,” she croaked out.

 

Though the wind was howling outside and the snow was swirling, Kitty was in a thin cotton nightgown. She’d come down with some kind of fever and had been alternating between shivering and sweating for hours.

 

They had taken her to the infirmary as soon as Ella felt her forehead earlier that day but the doctor had told them it was nothing to be alarmed about and to come back if the fever persisted tomorrow. They’d been told to just keep her as comfortable as possible and to give her a lot of liquids.

 

He hadn’t been entirely sure what he was expecting until the doctor gave him the same advice that his old nanny would have given. Fluids and sleep. Not exactly groundbreaking. He’d been hoping there would be some pill or vaccine or _something_ that would instantly take her pain away.

 

She had a sore throat and headache and aches and pains from the fever. When she was cold she was practically crying she was in so much pain and now that she was hot, her little cheeks were flushed and her eyes were cloudy.

 

“Do you think you could eat anything, my love?,” Ella asked, wiping another cool wash cloth down her arm, “Maybe some ice cream for your throat?”

 

“I’m not hungry,” Kitty whimpered.

 

That more than anything told him how poorly she really felt. Their niece had quite the sweet tooth. Ella’s eyes met his and he knew she was thinking the same thing.

 

She had been sitting in the bed with Kitty while he knelt on the floor. Grey Wind was laying in wait at the foot of the bed for whenever Kitty turned cold again.

 

She guided Kitty to sit up and their little girl’s forehead fell immediately against him. Ella pulled her long auburn curls up and put them into a bun and swiped the cool wash cloth across the back of her neck. Kitty sighed in contentment so Ella swiped it across her throat as well.

 

“Mommy it hurts,” Kitty cried and collapsed into Ella’s arms.

 

Ella’s eyes met his yet again as she held their niece to her, rocking her back and forth.

 

Kitty hadn’t had any need to call Ella that since they stepped foot in Castle Black. Everyone knew who Ella was and who she was to Kitty and it didn’t matter because after weeks here both had bewitched the camp. Men who had been calling for Ella’s deportation, even her ransoming, were now firmly soldiers in not only Kitty’s but also her army.

 

There had been a _lecture_ a couple of weeks ago in the main auditorium which really just consisted of Ella answering questions about the South and her family. She hadn’t told all the men _everything_ , not as much as she shared with him and Jon and Tormund, the other generals, but she shared enough that they trusted her and knew she was on their side. Once they were sure of that they let themselves adore her unabashedly. As they did her niece.

 

So there’d been no need for Kitty to call Ella _Mommy_ in weeks. Even if there had, there’d be no need here, in her bedroom, in their apartment, with only Tormund and Jon in the living room out of earshot.

 

Ella had been afraid of this, they’d talked about it only a few days ago. There was no aunt in the world quite so devoted as Ella but the lines were blurring every day and they both knew it. It wasn’t just on Kitty’s part either but on theirs.

 

It filled Ella with unimaginable guilt. She felt as though she’d done something wrong every time Kitty wanted to hear a story about her rather than Sansa.

 

_I’ve stolen her child, Robb. How will she ever forgive me?_

 

Nobody else saw it that way of course. Robb was guilty of it too, he thought of Kitty as his little girl. _His_. But it was easier for him, because Kitty had never really had a Dad.

 

With Ella it was different. She and Sansa and Kitty had been inseparable in the South, and now that Sansa wasn’t here, she was tasked with filling the void. And she was blaming herself for doing it too well.

 

He wondered if part of it was that she felt something deep and nagging within her like he did. Something that he’d never voiced aloud or hardly admitted to himself. Something so incredibly terrible that it made him wonder if he wasn’t a monster just like Kitty’s father.

 

That as much as he wanted Sansa home and safe, he didn’t want her to take Kitty away. He didn’t even want to be Kitty’s neighbor. He wanted her with him, every day, where she belonged. Because she was his little girl. She was their little girl.

 

“I know, Kitten,” Ella cooed at her softly, rocking her gently. The distress was clear in her eyes but she had that thing, _a mother’s strength_ , Tormund called it, that allowed her to be whatever Kitty needed no matter how she was feeling. “Do you think you could try to sleep for a little while?”

 

“I’ll try,” Kitty said sweetly. She turned her head, resting her cheek on Ella’s shoulder and looked at him. “You’re staying home though.”

 

He brushed some hair that had been matted to her forehead off of her face and said, “Yeah honey, I’m staying.”

 

“Okay,” she said and closed her eyes.

 

Thirty seconds later her little mouth popped open just a little and her laboured breathing steadied. Ella laid her down gently on the bed and then crawled over her to get out.

 

He got up as well and they didn’t say anything to one another as they left Kitty’s room. They left the door open so they’d hear Kitty if she called for them, even though Grey Wind would come to fetch one of them if something was wrong.

 

He placed his hand on Ella’s back and it was coiled more tightly than he’d ever felt it. This was tearing her apart from the inside out. She leaned against him, just as Kitty had and they walked into the living room where Tormund and Jon were sitting.

 

They’d arrived a little while earlier, letting themselves in with the key that Jon had and had at Ella’s suggestion helped themselves to leftovers while they tended to Kitty.

 

They both looked up in concern when they entered the room.

 

“We need to find Sansa,” Robb told them. He knew he was stating the obvious but he couldn’t stand Ella punishing herself. And he wanted his sister back, no matter what the monstrous, tiny voice in the very pit of his stomach said about Kitty, there was no denying that.

 

Tormund and Jon shared a look, so he and Ella followed suit.

 

“That’s actually why we’re here. We uh, have some information,” Jon said. He looked at the pair of them, his eyes lingering on Ella. “You guys ought to sit down.”


	13. Chapter 13

In all her life she had never felt so betrayed. Not by Trystane when he ended their partnership by calling off their engagement. Not by her grandfather when he threw him in prison. Not by her family as they brutally consolidated power in the south.

 

 _Love is a poison_.

 

It was one of the many lessons her mother had taught her. One of the many lessons she had tried to forget as she lay awake at night. But she never could. So it was as heartbreaking as it was utterly predictable that the person she had always trusted most in the world would betray her more than all the monsters within it.

 

“I don’t understand,” Robb growled softly.

 

Even after this he wouldn’t raise his voice, not with Kitty sleeping down the hall. She dictated his every action, his every thought, and he didn’t even realise it.

 

Ella stood up and went to look out the window. It was snowing yet again, a deep, heavy, purifying snow that made even a place like this look innocent.

 

“So she _is_ the… Little Dove?,” Robb questioned.

 

“Alayne Stone is the Little Dove,” Tormund allowed.

 

“Alayne Stone is Sansa,” Ella reminded them, not bothering to turn around. She was such a fool, she had secured the documents herself. “Alayne Stone. Dark brown hair. Blue eyes. 5’9. Twenty-five years old. Born at Last Hearth Hospital to a Lyanna Stone.”

 

She noticed some movement out of the corner of her eyes and turned to look at Jon. He nearly flinched the way he had when he’d seen Kitty’s face the first time. Like he was seeing a ghost.

 

She turned back to the window and touched the pads of her fingers to the cold panes. Though it was warm inside the windows were freezing, it was the kind of cold that burned at the touch but she didn’t move away.

 

She watched the snow falling. She could practically taste it on her tongue. After so long in the north she had come to realise that snow had a taste, and a smell.

 

“Get her out of there,” Robb ordered. “I want her _out_ , do you hear me? Today.”

 

She couldn’t blame him. As angry as she was at Sansa, she loved her even more. She didn’t want her there, surrounded by her enemies.

 

Sansa Baratheon, aka Sansa Stark, aka Alayne Stone, aka the Little Dove had been leading a resistance cell in the Vale since around the time she and Kitty crossed the border. The supply raid in the Mountains of the Moon had been her idea, though it had been blamed on a group called the Stone Crows. She could also be linked to half a dozen assassinations of high level government officials.

 

_The Little Dove sings and lions fall._

 

Her best friend had been leading a revolution while she had been reading her daughter bedtime stories.

 

Ella looked down at the ground far below and saw the spot where only last week she and Kitty had made snow angels.

 

_You’re the only one I trust to raise her the way I would._

 

“She’ll just go back,” Ella said softly.

 

It had been to herself, and she wouldn’t even have realised she’d spoken aloud if she didn’t see them all stand up out of the corner of her eye. She couldn’t bear to meet any of their gazes so she looked straight ahead.

 

“There’s a reason that she left Kitty with me, and sent us to you Robb. She planned this from the start. Sansa has abandoned Kitty, and you and I along with her.”

 

“She hasn’t _abandoned_ her-,” Robb started.

 

Ella whipped around then and looked at him incredulously.

 

“What do you call it when a woman sends her child away with no intention of ever reuniting with her?,” she challenged him, “What do you call someone who sends their daughter away to be raised by another?”

 

“A patriot,” Jon said as though he couldn’t help himself.

 

“A patriot,” Ella nodded. He was right, there was no denying it. Sansa was a patriot, a brave, noble patriot. “And a terrible mother.”

 

“You were going to leave Kitty,” Robb pointed out. “When Varys came.”

 

“To protect her, not to fight in the rebellion!,” Ella argued.

 

“But you had every intention of doing so once Sansa came north once -“

 

“Listen to yourself, Robb! _Once Sansa came north_. Once Kitty was with her _mother_. I was Kitty’s _aunt -“_

 

They all heard it. The finality of that statement. _I was Kitty’s aunt_. Was. No longer.

 

Sansa hadn’t just abandoned her child, she had robbed Ella of the future she was meant to have. Robbed her of the ability to ever go back and face her family. Ever fight for her country. There was no way she would ever leave Kitty now. Not even if Sansa returned.

 

Kitty didn’t know Sansa anymore. It had been months and she was so young. All she knew was the people she saw every day, her and Robb, even Jon and Tormund. She never asked about Sansa, didn’t want to pray for her, changed the subject when she was brought up. Ella had known for weeks now that all the training was for naught. She could never leave her little girl.

 

Sansa had turned her into a mother and Ella would never forgive her for it.

 

***

 

He had known Ella for months. Difficult, scary, heartbreaking months. And yet he’d never seen her cry. She had come close on a number of occasions. Her beautiful green eyes welling with tears that never fell.

 

So he had tried to prepare himself for what it would be like when that dam finally broke. He knew it would be terrible, all of the pressure she put on herself, the fear for her country and the hatred for her family, missing her best friend and worrying for her niece.

 

Nothing could have prepared him for the overwhelming sorrow of Ella’s silent sob.

 

She didn’t fall to the ground, she didn’t moan or cry out. Her tiny body was racked with silent sob after silent sob, the tears spilling out of her eyes.

 

They had all heard it, the finality of her statement. It had sounded like a eulogy.

 

Ella loved Kitty with her whole heart. She always had. But she was never supposed to be her mother and now, no matter what happened to Sansa, she always would be.

 

Robb looked over at Jon and Tormund. For a moment he’d forgotten they were there but now he saw that they were both in the same stance that he was. Legs bent, leaning slightly forward, like they were prepared to catch her if she fell and that they might just charge ahead towards her even if she didn’t.

 

He moved to take a step forward but then he heard it.

 

 _“Mommy!_ ”

 

Ella straightened up immediately and wiped her face.

 

“I can go check on her, princess,” Tormund offered kindly.

 

“No, that’s alright, thank you,” Ella said, polite even in grief, her voice only a little hoarse, “I’ve got her.”

 

She walked down the hallway and they all heard her cooing gently to Kitty.

 

“By the gods,” Tormund shook his head, “That woman puts every man in Castle Black to shame.”

 

He was right, there was no one like Ella. She was the strongest person he’d ever known. Except, maybe, Sansa.

 

“Ella’s right,” Robb said, “If we go in there and grab her, Sansa will just go back.”

 

“We’re going to have to convince her,” Jon nodded. “The only three people in this world capable of convincing her live in this apartment. But I’ll have to do.”

 

“Jon!,” Robb argued, “You can’t - you -“

 

“You’re not a _foot_ soldier,” Tormund reminded him, “You’re the Commander of the Night’s Watch.”

 

“And as such I’m uniquely qualified, wouldn’t you say?,” Jon questioned.

 

“You’ve sworn vows!,” Tormund argued.

 

“Aye, too many to count,” Jon nodded. “I’ve broken half of them already.”

 

“You’re the most honourable man in the country,” Tormund bellowed at him, “You do this and that’s all over!”

 

“And what kind of man would I be if I let my honour matter more than her life?”

 

Robb should have been arguing right along with Tormund. He agreed with him, Jon was the Commander of the Night’s Watch. There was no other man like him in the world with the same combination of skills and bravery and cunning. His place was here, or at the head of an army, not in an extraction mission.

 

But there were choices, terrible choices that they all would have to make in the wars to come. Sansa had made hers and she had stolen Ella’s. And his too, he supposed, but he didn’t care about that. Ella and Kitty were his future and if the only thing he accomplished for the rest of his life was keeping them safe and happy then he would consider it well lived.

 

He wasn’t about to steal Jon’s. And it was a waste of breath. There was no reasoning with a man in love.

 

“I think hot chocolate is a _wonderful_ idea!,” they heard Ella say loudly to notify them that she wasn’t coming out of Kitty’s bedroom alone.

 

Tormund closed the computer just as Ella walked back into the room. She had Kitty completely wrapped up in her comforter, their little girl’s head tucked underneath hers. Grey Wind was following close behind, Kitty’s little stuffed wolf in his mouth.

 

Kitty looked at him and whimpered, “I’m still cold.”

 

He stepped forward and took her out of Ella’s arms. According to them he was like a furnace, which he supposed explained why he rarely got cold. Ella would kick off all the blankets when he held her at night, and when they were all outside they’d both huddle against him.

 

He sat down on the couch and wrapped his arms around her. Kitty burrowed into him and Grey Wind hopped up on one side and covered her lap with his head.

 

She stopped shivering after a moment and whispered, “Thanks Daddy.”

 

She was asleep within seconds, her laboured breath steadying once again.

 

He thought again about the training the Night’s Watch went through. It was brutal, and gruelling, some might even call it inhumane. But it was necessary, as well, he now knew, to ensure undivided loyalty. There was no way a man of the Night’s Watch could love and serve at the same time.

 

_What is duty compared to the feel of your little girl safe in your arms?_

 

Ella came and sat on his other side. She sat up on her knees and pressed the back of her hand to Kitty’s forehead and cheek. When she was contented that Kitty’s fever was stable she pulled the comforter up a little bit higher and brushed the hair out of her face.

 

She went to get up, but he caught her hand. Her green eyes looked into his, a question within them. His asked their own.

 

_Can we be enough for you? Can this life, the one we can give her and ourselves be enough? If the only people you ever save are her and me, will you be satisfied?_

 

She looked at him and brushed his hair back as she’d just done to Kitty. There was farewell in her eyes, but not to him, not to Kitty - to herself. She nodded, a single tear falling out of her eye.

 

With that she leaned her head on his other shoulder, her arm extended across his chest to wrap around Kitty, her other hand scratching Grey Wind’s snout and making him sigh in contentment just as he sighed in relief.

 

He pressed a kiss to her hair and breathed in her familiar smell. He hated himself for the joy he felt knowing she’d never travel south. If he was a better man he would want her to have everything she wanted, no matter what.

 

_But what is honour compared to a woman’s love?_

 

He looked at Jon who was gazing at him with something he had not seen from him in sometime. Envy.

 

“When do you leave?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not going to lie, this story is emotionally draining. It will be wrapping up in a few chapters. Things are going to escalate quite quickly though.


	14. Chapter 14

“What’s that?,” he asked Ella as he came into the living room.

 

“A scarf, at least I _think_ it’s a scarf,” she said with a furrowed brow, her bottom lip worried between her teeth.

 

“As long as it’s not a ranch house,” he said before he could stop himself.

 

Ella looked at him in surprise and he felt his eyes moisten.

 

“Sansa loves that movie,” Ella said quietly.

 

He nodded at her and she smiled at him sadly and lifted her back away from the end of the couch and scooted forward. He went and sat down in the spot she recently vacated and pulled her back, so that she rested against both him and the arm of the couch.

 

He looked at the work she’d done so far and smiled. The rows were even and neat and her fingers moved deftly with the needles. It was a light pink yarn and when he touched his fingers to it felt like a caress.

 

“For Kitty I assume?,” he asked.

 

“Only if Tormund doesn’t want it,” she joked and he chuckled, stroking her soft hair.

 

She turned to look at him, a question in her eyes and she wrapped up the needles and set her knitting down on the coffee table. It was now his turn to look at her with a question in his, but she merely fell back against him, resting more fully across his chest.

 

He hugged her close and breathed her in, closing his mind against everything except them and the little girl and her dog that slept in the other room.

 

“You’ll keep her busy tomorrow?,” she asked.

 

“I’m going to try to teach her to skate,” he said, “And if it doesn’t take, I’ll bring her to the pool.”

 

“If you’re with her it’ll take,” she told him and leaned away from him so she could look up at him. She brushed his hair away from his face and he kissed her wrist. “She can do anything in this world if you’re with her.”

 

He felt his heart swelling in his chest. Kitty was the bravest little girl in the world, braver than any man at Castle Black. He still remembered the first day he’d met her when she’d refused to fall asleep so that she could watch over Ella. She had grown braver still once they’d come here. She still had a wariness of men, but no stranger would ever know it from the way she held her head high as she walked through the base.

 

The only time she didn’t was when she was being carried by him, and then she’d tuck her head underneath his and slump against him. As though she knew she was safe.

 

“You mean that?,” he asked.

 

“Of course I mean it,” she promised softly, “Some days I’d even swear she could fly.”

 

He pulled her gently by the back of her head so that he could kiss her. She kissed him back tenderly, her breath catching ever so slightly.

 

When they pulled away she turned on her side so that she was laying across him, looking up at him.

 

“Do you have everything you need?,” he asked.

 

She nodded, “Tormund brought me a whole bag of lemons this afternoon while Kitty was napping.”

 

He chuckled, “Think we’re going a little overboard? My lemon chicken and a lemon buttercream cake?”

 

She smiled, “There is no _overboard_ when it comes to Kitty and lemons. Your chicken has replaced my sole as her favorite dish which I have decided not to hold against you - mostly because getting sole up here has proven very difficult - and it’s her fourth birthday. She should have everything she loves.” A single tear fell down her cheek and she went on, “Even though she doesn’t have who she loves most.”

 

He swiped the tear off her cheek and nodded, “We’re getting her back. She won’t be here in time for her birthday, but before too long - we will all be together again. I promise.”

 

She nodded though he knew she didn’t really believe it. Jon had made it to the Vale but according to the latest intel he had not yet made contact. Sansa was fiercely guarded and Jon had to keep a low profile.

 

He’d been gone two weeks and for the first week they’d heard nothing, but we’re getting updates on him every couple of days now. The Little Dove had been active in recent weeks, and there had been an attempt made on Ella’s Great Uncle Kevan.

 

_“Princess, you don’t have to be here,” Tormund assured her._

 

_“Is he dead?,” Ella asked stoically._

 

_“No,” Tormund shook his head, “His son Lancel though…”_

 

_“She’s getting reckless,” Ella sighed. “Joff had no more love for Lancel than I did, but he won’t let this go unpunished. It’s almost as if…”_

 

_“As if what?,” Tormund asked._

 

_Ella looked at him blankly and then shook her head as though ridding her mind of something._

 

_“Did it follow the same pattern as the others?,” Ella asked, picking up one of the reports, “This doesn’t make any sense. Did you read this? It was a rookie mistake.”_

 

_Robb shrugged, “War is messy.”_

 

_“Yes but this wasn’t war,” Ella reminded him, “This was a hit. And Sansa is meticulous but this… this was sloppy. Are we sure it was her?”_

 

_“Her men, anyway,” Tormund nodded, “It is strange though, after all the hits she’s executed to perfection…”_

 

_“Or maybe it isn’t strange at all,” Ella shook her head. “And maybe it wasn’t a mistake.”_

 

_“She’ll never get another chance at Kevan Lannister,” Tormund assured her, “If this wasn’t a mistake, then why would she want to be seen to fail?”_

 

_Robb thought about the conversation he’d had with Jon about Ella’s skill at fighting._

 

_“Because she doesn’t want them to know how good she is,” he said, “She wants them to doubt her.”_

 

_“My uncle Kevan is useless,” Ella told them, “A figurehead, nothing more, but this will dominate the news cycle for weeks. They’ll use it as proof that the people have nothing to fear from the Little Dove… at least that is how the news will say it, but what they will really mean is that she is not worth rallying behind. She knows that… she would have left nothing to chance. This wasn’t a mistake, this is going exactly according to plan…”_

 

_“I still don’t understand, it goes completely against what she wants it -“_

 

_“Sometimes the best way to baffle them is to make moves that have no purpose, or even seem to work against you…,” Ella recited as though in a trance. He looked nervously at Tormund who shifted as well, it was as though Ella had gone to another plane, another dimension. She shook herself out of it and grabbed one of the dossiers, “What do you have on Petyr Baelish?”_

 

“We have to get her away from him,” Ella repeated once again.

 

“I know, baby, and we will,” he promised, “Jon would sooner die than come back without her, you know that.”

 

She stroked his cheek, sorrow in her eyes, “I only hope that Baelish and my family do not.”

 

***

 

“Make a wish, beauty!,” Tormund urged Kitty.

 

Kitty grinned, tapping her index finger against her lip, and then with an _ah ha!_ expression leaned forward and blew out her candles.

 

They all clapped, she and Robb and Tormund, Sam and Grenn. It certainly wasn’t the way she had anticipated celebrating her niece’s fourth birthday - she and Sansa had long planned to take her for high tea and then to a musical - but the little apartment was filled with love and the smell of lemons and Kitty looked perfectly happy with her unconventional party.

 

She, as Robb had once told her, was durable. She was so like Sansa, being able to adapt to different situations, different ways of life. Sam and Grenn were not the friends that she had envisioned for Kitty, but they were kind ones all the same.

 

“Grey Wind gets a piece too,” Kitty commanded Robb as he cut the cake.

 

Robb looked like he was going to protest but he merely grinned and nodded. Kitty was a loyal friend, she wouldn’t abandon Grey Wind.

 

“What did you wish for?,” Tormund asked.

 

“I can’t tell you that!,” Kitty guffawed incredulously. “If I do it won’t come _true_.”

 

Tormund smiled at her softly and pulled her into his lap. His eyes met hers and she smiled at him, because she knew what he was thinking.

 

_If you tell us your wishes we’ll make sure they come true._

 

He had told her about the daughters he’d lost one night. Kitty had a bad dream and Robb had gone to lay down with her for a bit and she and Tormund had sat side by side in the hall outside her bedroom.

 

_“You must think I’m crazy,” she guessed._

 

_It had only been a bad dream after all, and Robb was with her._

 

_“I don’t think you’re crazy, I know you are. How could you not be? Your heart is on the outside of your body. That’s enough to make the sanest among us go mad.”_

 

_“Boy or girl?,” she asked. He glanced over at her, “Your child.”_

 

_“Girls, two,” he said with a sad smile. “They had red hair, like me. Good luck, to be kissed by fire so they say.”_

 

_She placed her hand over his and intertwined their fingers._

 

_“We were strapped for cash, I wanted to give them and their mother a proper home, you know? A place they could be proud of. So I took a second job. I was at work one night and there was a burglary. The men didn’t think anyone was home, but they all were.”_

 

_“I’m so sorry, Tormund.”_

 

_Sorry was such an inadequate word for the immensity within her but it was all that she had._

 

_“I’m not even sure if she looks all that much like them,” he shook his head, “But when she smiles, or laughs… it’s like they’re in the room too.”_

 

_“Then you must be in their company often, because no one makes her laugh quite like you do,” she told him._

 

_“I love her for herself,” he promised._

 

_“I know you do,” she nodded, then leaned her head against his strong arm, “But it’s alright, to love her for them too. I love her more than anything in this world, for herself, but I love her for Sansa too.”_

 

_“Poor thing,” he sighed, “To hold so many lives within her. Such a poor, precious thing.”_

 

Tormund pretended to steal some of Kitty’s cake and she let out her melodic giggle. It had been her favourite sound in the world since the first time she had heard it, but now it was as though they were in an echo chamber, or as though a chorus had taken up the tune.

 

Her eyes met Tormund’s and he raised his eyebrows at her and she nodded.

 

_I hear them too._

 

Robb’s phone rang and they all turned to look at him, all except Kitty. This was not the phone he’d ditched in Wintertown, nor the burner’s he’d carried north. This was property of Castle Black, used for only one purpose.

 

He walked outside and she glanced at Tormund and he nodded at her.

 

She followed Robb out into the building’s hallway and nearly stumbled when she saw him doubled over.

 

“Robb?,” she asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

 

He turned to her, tears streaming down his face.

 

“No,” she shook her head. “No!”

 

“He has her,” Robb said.

 

“Who?,” she pleaded, “Baelish? Joffrey? My grandfather? Who?”

 

“Jon,” he told her incredulously. He let out a teary laugh and said, “He has her. He convinced her. They’re coming home.”

 

“Sansa? Sansa is coming home?,” she asked, tears falling freely from her eyes. She had never dared believe it could be true. She hadn’t had faith. She owed them both an apology. “She’s coming home?”

 

“She’s coming home,” Robb nodded.

 

They both let out a cry and a laugh and then she ran and leaped into his arms. He caught her to him and they each held on for dear life.

 

“Sansa,” she cried.

 

“Sansa,” he cried back.

 

_Oh Kitty, you precious thing, is this what you wished for?_


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a short update

“Gin,” Tormund said, discarding his last card.

 

Robb chuckled, “You don’t _say_ gin when you win.”

 

“Really? Because I won and I fuckin’ said it,” Tormund challenged.

 

She took a sip of water to hide her smile, but they both saw it anyway. She was smiling more now, knowing that it was only a matter of days before Jon and Sansa returned. Knowing that her family would be whole once again.

 

They’d put Kitty to bed a little while ago and had been hanging out. The news was on in the background but none of them were really paying attention to it. There wouldn’t be good news, not after the most recent round of arrests.

 

Her old nanny had been arrested, as had one of her college professors. A boy who had once punched Joffrey in eighth grade.

 

_Absolute power and he’s stuck on the playground._

 

“Auntie Ella, I’m thirsty,” Kitty yawned as she came into the room.

 

She crawled up on her lap and picked up the cards that Tormund had just dealt to her.

 

“Here you go Kitten,” Ella said, offering her the glass of water

 

Kitty drank and pointed at a King and Queen of hearts and Ella moved them so that they were next to each other.

 

“No helping your Auntie Ella, Kitty,” Tormund pleaded, “She’s already kicking my ass.”

 

“Torrrrmundddd,” Kitty giggled.

 

Ella smoothed her hair and let her fall back against her. She should be in bed but she’d been having trouble sleeping lately, often crawling in with her and Robb. It had started a couple of days ago when she’d woken up screaming _NO FATHER_.

 

Ella’s blood had curdled at the sound and Kitty had been almost inconsolable. She had only fallen asleep when Robb picked them both up and carried them to their room, holding them close.

 

Kitty had never really suffered from nightmares before, but she knew it was something that children experienced more the older they got. With more intelligence came more fears.

 

Ella picked up a card and Kitty pointed to a two of spades and Ella nodded, discarding it.

 

She laid the cards down on the table facedown as Robb picked up the pile and started laying things down. Kitty burrowed in closer to her and _oohed_ and _aaahed._

 

“Wow, Uncle Robb!,” she said when he laid down four aces.

 

“Traitor,” Ella whispered in her ear.

 

Kitty giggled, causing her to giggle as well, and her niece turned in her arms and wrapped her little ones around her neck. She laid her cheek on her shoulder and started stroking her hair.

 

Robb ran his foot up her shin and when she looked at him there was heat in his eyes. It was mixed with love, so much of it, and she couldn’t help but rub his leg right back.

 

_“Do you love me for what I am to Kitty?,” she asked._

 

_“Of course I do, baby,” he nodded, “I love how much she loves you.”_

 

 _“No,” she shook her head, “Do you love me_ because _of what I am to Kitty?”_

 

_His brow furrowed and he turned off the sink, drying his hands on the towel. He turned towards her and pulled her towards him._

 

_“What’s this about?”_

 

_“Sansa is coming home, and sooner or later, she and Kitty are going to live on their own. Aren’t they? I mean we aren’t all going to stay at Castle Black forever. And I just am afraid that when we lose her… that maybe you’ll realise…”_

 

_“That maybe I’ll realise what? That you are beautiful and brave and brilliant? That you are the most caring person I’ve ever known and the strongest one I’ve ever met? You think I’ll forget the way it feels when I hold you in my arms?”_

 

_“When couples lose a child the rate of divorce goes -“_

 

_“We aren’t losing her, we are just getting Sansa back. You and Sansa were practically co-parenting her down south. Why would it be any different now? What’s different now?”_

 

_“Because in the south they were all I had. And now I have you. I just don’t want to lose you.”_

 

_“You won’t, you can’t,” he promised, kissing her deeply. She kissed him back, leaning all her weight against him, relying on him to keep her steady, to keep her upright. Relying on him in the way he’d begged her to. When they broke apart he stroked her hair and then turned the faucet back on. “And we’ll have to get married before we can get divorced…how does next Tuesday sound?”_

 

She looked down at the rubber band that was wrapped around the ring finger on her left hand and smiled. There were no jewellers up here and though he promised to get her something better as soon as he could, she knew she’d wear this always. She’d remember the way he’d pulled it off of the plastic container of chicken salad, his hands still wet from the dishes. The sheepish grin and the tears that fell when she’d told him yes.

 

“Mommy!,” Kitty shouted.

 

She went to ask Kitty what was wrong but then she looked where she was pointing. At the television, where Sansa in a tailored grey coat, a huge bruise forming on her left eye was walking through paparazzi. Holding Joffrey’s hand.

 

Robb turned up the television and she stood at his side, Kitty locked in her arms.

 

_“In a shocking turn of events, Sansa Baratheon has been returned at long last to her husband. We are still gathering details but we know that police has one suspect connected to her kidnapping in custody… a northerner by the name of Jon Snow.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhhh sorry, all about the cliffhangers. 
> 
> I'd like to warn everyone now that I will be updating the tags for the next chapter. Even though I don't want to give anything away I feel like it's important to do so. Please heed them.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *please heed updated tags*

Jon was killed after the next commercial break.

 

It seemed impossible to Robb that one such as him could be killed so unceremoniously. That there wasn’t time to think, there wasn’t time to plan. But how could it have been any different? The moment Jon was taken his fate was sealed.

 

No sooner had he appeared on the platform, blood matted to his face, than he had been forced to his knees.

 

Executions had become public under the new regime. Last words were not allowed, no blessing was given. It didn’t matter. Jon wouldn’t have said anything anyway. Not with Sansa standing on the stage next to Joffrey.

 

Her hand was firmly in his, his security detail surrounding them. Surrounding her. For her protection. For her imprisonment.

 

_I want you all to see what happens to enemies of the state! I want my wife to see that she is safe, that the North will never take her back, they will never take her away from me. Here is the criminal responsible for the attack on my Uncle, responsible for the murder of dozens of our most esteemed patriots. Look upon the face of evil!_

 

The crowd had been silent. He wasn’t entirely sure how that many people had been amassed so quickly, but the area in front of the Red Keep was full. Yet you could have heard a pin drop.

 

One camera had been on Sansa at all times. She didn’t cry, she didn’t even flinch.

 

To Robb it seemed as though she had aged more than the two and half years since he’d seen her last. Her eye featured a large bruise but she seemed otherwise unharmed. She seemed older though, gaunt.

 

She looked like their mother.

 

Jon didn’t look at her, the love of his life, before the blade came down. He looked right at the camera. Right at him, it seemed.

 

_You did this. You killed your brother. It’s your fault._

 

Ella had shielded Kitty from the worst of it, but she still heard the newscaster pronounce him dead.

 

He was a brother, and a soldier, and a friend. He was a hero, a patriot. He deserved more than a steely pronouncement, a footnote. But the gods rarely give anyone what they deserve.

 

If they did, it would be Joffrey’s head now on a spike.

 

It was medieval, really, primitive even. It was not hard to see how monarchs had kept the peasants in line, not when the birds feasted on enemies of the state.

 

“Shh, shh, Kitten, shh,” Ella said, rocking her back and forth.

 

“He….h-h-has M-m-mommy…I…I…t-t-tried t-to t-tell you…,” Kitty sobbed accusingly.

 

Ella’s eyes met his before she collapsed onto the couch, Kitty still safely in her arms. She let out a sob, a horrified, broken sob, and he knew that she was thinking the same thing that he was.

 

The dreams. They had been a warning.

 

He’d had them before his parents died. He should have known.

 

_The North will never take her back, they will never take her away from me._

 

Tormund was already on the phone, he was second in command after all. He was asking how and why and threatening to bring hell down upon Castle Black and the entirety of the South in remembrance of his Commander and friend.

 

He heard Tormund telling people to get over here. Robb wasn’t sure how, but their little apartment had become a centre of intelligence. He and Ella had no official clearance and yet they knew more sensitive information than the Prime Minister.

 

In another time he might’ve liked time to mourn Jon alone with his family, but not now. Now he wanted to be at the centre of it all, he needed to make sure that extracting Sansa was still the number one priority.

 

“Shhh, shhh, my love, I know, I know, I know,” Ella was cooing at Kitty nonsensically, “We’re going to do everything we can to get her back.”

 

Even now she wouldn’t lie to her. She wouldn’t make any promises that she couldn’t keep. He loved her for that. That and so many other things.

 

But he had heard the word on which she’d placed the emphasis.

 

“Not-,” he started.

 

“Everything,” she repeated, her eyes locked to his.

 

***

 

“Are you sure about this?,” Tormund asked her for the fifth time since they’d left Robb’s townhouse.

 

He wasn’t the only one. They had a full security detail with them, the car they had driven in was completely bullet proof. _Bazooka proof_ , Grenn had muttered when he saw it.

 

The Prime Minister himself had called her to confirm that she wanted to go through with this.

 

“Yes.”

 

“I still can’t believe Robb let you do this,” Tormund shook his head.

 

“He’s not happy about it, that’s for sure,” she sighed, “But he knows it’s the best chance we have.”

 

It had been hard to convince them. All of them.

 

It wasn’t so much the plan that they had a problem with, it was her being the one to execute it.

 

_“How did you even come up with this?,” Tormund asked._

 

_“Sansa.”_

 

Everyone had fought her on it, Robb most of all. And he’d disappeared for hours when she’d mentioned the final nail in the coffin.

 

“How about you, Kitten, how are you feeling?,” she asked her niece who was sitting in her lap.

 

“Cooooool as a cucumber,” Kitty cooed back at her.

 

Her angelic face was enough to make Ella call the whole thing off.

 

_We just have to get through the day and then they won’t be able to touch her._

 

That had been the other purpose of the Prime Minister’s call. To offer them the protection of the entire North.

 

She knew this offer was not free of strings, but it didn’t matter. Not if it would keep Kitty safe. Not if it could get Sansa home.

 

“Miss Baratheon?,” a young woman asked her, “They’re ready for you.”

 

“Okay, thank you. Come on troops!”

 

With that she stood up and followed the young woman out of the waiting room. Kitty sat in her arms and Tormund walked at her side, his body tensed and towards them both.

 

“They’re allies, remember?,” she teased him.

 

It was hard to joke. Jon’s body wasn’t yet cold and Sansa was still in Joffrey’s grasp. There was nothing funny about any of it.

 

He looked at her and grinned though, as though he too found the humor where there wasn’t any, “Oh princess, not in _my_ line of work.”

 

She leaned her arm against his briefly. He had become as dear a friend to her as any, and he had been unfailingly loyal. She and Robb had been nervous, that with Jon dead that the Night’s Watch wouldn’t honour his wishes. Tormund had made it clear from the beginning that they would.

 

Getting Sansa home was still the North’s top priority.

 

The woman stopped and turned, “Alright, if you’ll come with me, Miss Baratheon? Your friend and niece can wait right here.”

 

Kitty clung to her but Tormund said, “Alright, beauty, get all up _in_ here.”

 

She giggled and so did Kitty, and she pressed a kiss to her temple before letting Tormund take her into his arms.

 

“Go get ‘em, Auntie Ella!,” Kitty shouted at her.

 

“If you can keep her quiet,” the young woman said. Both Ella and Tormund glared at her and she gulped, “I mean… just…”

 

Ella took pity on her, knowing that she would be the one who was yelled at for any noise Kitty made. She pressed a finger to her lips and Kitty swiped her own finger across her lips.

 

Ella’s heart hardened, thinking of the last time they had done their signal. They’d been on the run from Kitty’s father, her brother, when the man had tried to follow them to their hotel.

 

_It’s all his fault._

 

They never would have been on the run if it weren’t for Joffrey. Thousands wouldn’t be imprisoned. Jon would be alive. Sansa would be free.

 

_You wanted to fight for the cause, now’s your chance._

 

“Remember Kitten, you just have to answer their questions, okay?,” she asked. “I’ll go first and then you’ll come join me.”

 

“Okay Auntie Ella,” Kitty said and pressed her forehead against hers.

 

Ella breathed her in once more and then turned away, following the young woman.

 

“Miss Baratheon, thank you so much for joining us,” an artificially handsome man said to her, offering her his large hand, “We’ll make this easy for you and your niece. Just a few questions, simple.”

 

Ella nodded and shook his hand, plastering a smile on her face, “Thank you for the opportunity. And _please_ call me Ella.”

 

His smile became more genuine and he didn’t let go of her hand. She did everything she could to keep the smile on her face as she extracted it. He gestured to the chair opposite him and she took a seat.

 

A man off to the side nodded at him and the man turned away from her and said, “Alright folks, as promised I am now joined by _Myrcella Baratheon._ For those of you who don’t know her she is the granddaughter of Tywin Lannister and the sister of Joffrey Baratheon, the de facto autocrat of the Southern Kingdoms. Miss Baratheon, thanks for joining us!”

 

“Thank _you_ for having me, and please call me Ella,” she repeated, her tone light and relaxed.

 

“Now many of our viewers may be confused about what you are doing here. On a Northern news channel…,” he said and leaned forward conspiratorially, a grin plastered to his face, “Care to explain?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, I know.
> 
> Unfortunately, this was always the way it was going to go, from the beginning.


End file.
